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THE 

GOLDEN TREASURY 

SELECTED AND ARRANGED WITH NOTES 
BY 

FRANCIS T. PALGRAVE 
I) 

LATE PROFESSOR OF POETRY IX THE UNIVERSITY 
OF OXFORD 

BOOK FOURTH 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND FURTHER NOTES 
BY ALLAN ABBOTT, A.M., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF 
ENGLISH IN TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 




CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



,'3 
;fHerrtIl'ci enslisl) Ccpte 

This series of books includes in complete editions those master- 
pieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use 
of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes 
are chosen for their special quahfications in connection with the 
texts issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity 
with the pi:actical needs of the classroom, no less than sound 
scholarship, characterizes the editing of every book in the series. 

In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduc- 
tion, including a sketch of the hfe of the author and his relation 
to the thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in ques- 
tion chosen from the great body of EngUsh criticism, and, where 
possible, a portrait of the author, are given. Ample explanatory 
notes of such passages in the text as call for special attention are 
supplied, but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the 
obvious are rigidly excluded. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY. 



Copyright, 1911, 1914 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



AUG IS 1914 

©aA379151 



r 



i: CONTENTS 



Introduction page 

Lyric Poetry 5 

Francis Turner Palgrave 19 

Critical Opinions of the Golden Treasury. . . 21 

How to Teach the Golden Treasury 23 

Books for Further Study 25 

Dedication to Alfred Tennyson 27 

Preface by Francis Turner Palgrave 29 

The Golden Treasury: Book Fourth 33 

Notes 235 

Topics for Study 242 

Index of Writers 244 

Index of First Lines 248 



INTRODUCTION 



LYRIC POETRY 

The Golden Treasury has for half a century been the accepted 
collection of the best English verse, for the period it covers, 
from the age of Elizabeth to about 1830. The selections were 
made by a poet, Francis Turner Palgrave, with the advice of 
one of the greatest modern poets, Alfred Tennyson.^ 

What lyric poetry is, and what it means to a man of poetic 
appreciation, can best be seen by reading Palgrave's own 
Preface (p. 29). As we turn over the leaves of the book, we 
see that the subjects of poetry are as varied as life itself; we 
find poems on war and patriotism, on birth and death, on flowers, 
trees, and streams, on the sea and the sky; poems on friendship 
and on love in all degrees, — youthful romance, lovers parted 
or forsaken, love in marriage and in old age; poems of compU- 
ment, of humor, of regret, of aspiration. It is not the subject 
that makes the poem, but what the poet sees in it, beyond the 
vision of the rest of us. Shakespeare's banished duke found 

"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything;'' 

and Wordsworth said 

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

This power of seeing beyond the superficial fact to some more 
important and significant truth is what we mean by the poetic 
imagination. By this power of imagination the poet summons 
up whatever comparisons w^ill throw the essential quality of 

1 See introduction by Edward Hutton to the Booklovers' Library 
edition of The Golden Treasury. 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION 

the fact out into the light. Tlie song of an unseen skylark, 
for instance, reminds Shelley (p. 135) of all manner of pure and 
bright loveliness from a hidden source, — moonhght from behind 
a cloud, hymns of an unknown poet, love songs of a maiden in a 
palace tower, a glow-worm hidden in the grass, or a rose bud in 
its own leaves, — 

"all that ever was 
Joyous and clear and fresh," — 

and those of us who have never even heard a skylark, gain an 
appreciation of the beauty of its song far above any matter-of- 
fact description. Still greater is the poet's power of seeing, 
imaginatively, into the hearts of commonplace people, and find- 
ing their hidden motives and ideals. We may think of sailors 
as a rather ordinary set of men; but Campbell's ringing verses 
(p. 83) 

"Ye mariners of England 
That guard our native seas!" 

rouse us to a different idea of them, — an idea justified by naval 
history. 

Nothing is more fatal to poetry than to have these imaginings 
false; once the poet has proclaimed them, they must ring true, — 
true at least to some aspects of the subject, at some time, under 
the right circumstances; if not the whole truth, yet true as far 
as they go. And this truth must, for poetry, be of a kind that 
stirs our feelings; that moves us to dehght, laughter, sympathy, 
horror, anger, patriotism, reverence. Here, again, the emotion 
must be genuine; a pretended emotion trumped up for its own 
sake is sentimentaUty. The reader who thinks poetry is senti- 
mental or "slushy" should turn to Scott's "Gathering Song of 
Donald the Black" (p. 80) or Cunningham's "A wet sheet and 
a flowing sea" (p. 82) or Mickle's "The Sailor's Wife." The 
sailor's wife is far from sentimental when she exclaims 

"There's twa fat hens upo' the coop 
Been fed this month and mair; 
Mak' haste and thraw their necks about 
That Colin weel may fare," — 



LYRIC POETRY 7 

she's undoubtedly glad to get Colin home again, and is showing 
it in a very natural way. 

There are various ways in which the power of seeing beyond 
the fact is expressed in the poet's style. Figures of speech, for 
instance, must not be thought of as ornaments, added to the 
poem, but as ways of making more clear or more intense, by 
suggested comparisons, the poet's real meaning. For instance, 
when Marvel, in his "Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda" 
tells us that God 

" — hangs in shades the orange bright 
Like golden lamps in a green night," 

or when Wordsworth says of Milton (p. 92) 

"Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart," 

we feel more vividly the beauty of the orange-grove and the 
loftiness of Milton's spirit. Shakespeare's sonnets are full of 
such comparisons, or similes. His imagination often seized on 
a Ukeness which could be carried out in detail, as in these Hues: 

"Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore, 
So do our minutes hasten to their end; 
Each changing place with that which goes before, 
In sequent toil all forwards do contend." 

Here we get not merely the apt comparison of the passage of 
time wdth waves following one after another and disappearing, 
but also the quick pen-picture of the hurry of waves crowding 
each other up the beach, — a picture that intensifies the idea of 
the rapid passing of the minutes. 

When one thing is not merely compared to another, but spoken 
of as if it were that other, we have the figure known as metaphor. 
This, if the meaning is not obscure, is a more forcible figure than 
simile, as it enables the poet to put his idea in a condensed, 
almost telegraphic, form. When Keats says (p. 75) 

"When I behold upon the night's starr'd face. 
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance 
And think that I may never live to trace 
Their shadows," 



8 INTRODUCTION 

we pass over almost without notice the suggestion of the night 
being a real creature with a "face," and seize upon the wonderful 
thought of the clouds on a starry night being for Keats so full 
of romantic visions, of which his poems were merely shadows, 
that he would never be able to WTite them all. 

A comparison, whether metaphor or simile, may run on to 
some length, as in Wordsworth's "England and Switzerland, 
1802" (p. 90) and Scott's "Coronach" (p. 122). In such 
cases, the poet may greatly strengthen his effect, by the apt- 
ness with which the two ideas continue to parallel each other; 
there is danger, however, that we may think more of his clever- 
ness and ingenuity than the importance of his thought. 

Another frequently used figiu-e is -personification, by which 
objects of nature, or mere abstractions of quahties, are spoken of 
as if they had Ufe and personality. Wordsworth calls the daisy 
"a nun demure ... or sprightly maiden" (p. 160). Shake- 
speare speaks of "that chm-1, Death," and "Captive Good 
attending Captain 111"; Milton, of "Laughter, holding both 
his sides." It is fatally easy to sUp into the habit of merely 
spelhng abstract nouns with capitals, without imagining them 
transformed into persons at all; " printer's-devil personifica- 
tion," as it has been called. Gray is sometimes guilty of this, 
as in the hues 

"Where grateful Science still adores 
Her Henry's holy shade." 

In true personification, the thing personified really appears to 
live. Shelley's "Night" (p. 62) is besought to 

"Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, 
Star-inwrought : 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day," 

and later we hear of his "brother Death," and his "sweet child 
Sleep, the filmy-eyed." 

Another poetic device, not exactly a figure of speech, but aUied 
to them, is the pretty pretense known as the -pastoral. In poems 
of this kind, everyone is thought of as a shepherd, in a sort of 
golden age of simphcity; with nothing to do but sit in the shade 



LYRIC POETRY 9 

watching the sheep, playing on rustic instruments of music, 
singing songs, or making love. This convention goes back to 
ancient Greek times, when people who had become tii'ed of artifi- 
cial city Ufe turned with delight to the fresh shepherd poems of 
Theocritus, from the mountains of Sicily. The modern pastoral 
is usually sheer artifice: we don't need to be told that Marlowe's 
Passionate Shepherd is no Enghsh sheep-tender, when he offers 
his love 

"Fair lin^d slippers for the cold 
With buckles of the purest gold," 

as well as silver dishes on an ivory table. Milton speaks of his 
dead friend as Lycidas, a shepherd, when we very well know his 
real name was Edward King, and he was a college student pre- 
paring for the ministry. Artificial as the pastoral seems at 
first," we come to recognize it as a graceful and often a beautiful 
device, specially fit for somewhat formal poems of comphment, 
of regret, or of bereavement. 

The pastoral is sometimes hard to distinguish from the poem 
really descriptive of country hfe; the two shade into each other. 

A further characteristic of poetic thought is the ability of 
poets to put some universal human observation or ideal into such 
a striking phrase as to satisfy the race that it is the one best 
and permanent expression for that thought. So we get our 
so-called "quotations," the hues everybody knows, without 
perhaps knowing where they come from; such as 

"The Child is Father of the Man." {Wordsworth, p. 226) 

"I could not love Thee, dear, so much 
Loved I not honour more." {Lovelace) 

"We carved not a line and we raised not a stone, 
But we left him alone with his glory." {Wolfe, p. 99 ) 

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty." {Keats, p. 215) 

— "old, unhappy far-off things 

And battles long ago." {Wordsworth, p. 154) 

What has been said so far applies, in the main, to all poetry. 
A lyric poem is distinguished from all other kinds by being short, 



10 INTRODUCTION 

and by expressing not a story (as does an epic or a ballad) nor 
a conflict of different persons' wills (as does a drama), but a 
single idea, mood, or feeling of the poet himself. It is also dis- 
tinguished (as the title of the book suggests) by being singable. 
Many lyrics, indeed, in this collection were wTitten originally for 
tunes; and a great age of lyric verse will always be a music- 
loving age. Such was the age of Ehzabeth and the half-century 
following; an age when everybody sang or played some instru- 
ment. Shakespeare's characters are always singing; some of his 
plays, like Twelfth Night, are almost musical comedy. The 
original music of many of these songs from plays, and others 
included in this volume, has been traced, and can be found in 
Elson's Shakespeare in Music; and some of them have been 
set to music by later composers as many as a score of times. 
Many of the poems have become popular songs that are known 
the world over; songs like "Rule Britannia," "Sally in our 
Alley," "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," "I arise from 
dreams of Thee" (p. 44). Many others were clearly \\Titten 
with a tune in mind. Burns' s favorite method of composing 
was to select a popular Scotch air, and then write words to fit. 
Even lyrics which do not seem to have a tune in them are ^Titten 
for the ear, not for the eye; Scott used to compose while riding 
horseback; Tennyson and Wordsworth would half recite, half 
chant their poems while walking. So to get the real spirit of 
these poems, we must either sing them or read them aloud 
rhythmically. 

The pleasure to be gained from poetry is more than doubled 
if one understands the technique of versification: just as the 
pleasure of watching a game of ball depends on knowing the rules 
of the game. The student is therefore urged to master the 
following simple rules of poetic technique. 

The fundamental feature of verse, as of music, is rhythm. 
Rhythm is an arrangement of a series of sounds, or objects, or 
figures, at regular intervals, in a repeating pattern. In studying 
design, pupils early learn the use of rhythm in oriental rug- 
borders or in wall-paper or embroidery. In music, rhythm 
appears in the "time," or the way the notes are marked off into 



LYRIC POETRY 11 

measures, each with its proper number of full or half or quarter 
notes. So in architectm-e, a cathedral is marked off by a regular 
series of pillars and arches, each section being equivalent to each 
other; the caT\4ngs, also, are arranged in series, rhythmically. 
This is why Ruskin could call architecture "frozen music." 

In poetry, the rhythm depends on the way the voice is thrown 
on certain syllables,^ marking out the ones that, as it were, 
"carry the tune," and shghting the others. The various rhythms 
are classified (1) by the number of strong accents or stresses in 
the line, (2) by the way each strong syllable is hnked with one or 
more hght ones or pauses (like rests, in music) to make up a 
"foot," as we call the repeating gi'oup of syllables. 

To take some of the famihar poems of The Golden Treasury, 
we find: 

Two-stress (dimeter) 

He is gone on the mountain, 

He is lost to the forest, 

Like a summer-dried fountain, 

When our need was the sorest. — (Scott, p. 122) 
Three-stress (trimeter) 

John Anderson, my jo, John 

When we were first acquent 

Your locks were like the raven. 

Your bonnie brow was brent. — (Burns) 
Four-stress (tetrameter) 

I I I I ' 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest 

/ / 4 1 

By all their country's wishes blest! — (Collins) 

1 Pupils who have studied Latin poetry should not confuse this 
stress, or natural emphasis, with the vowel-quantity which de- 
termines the rules of Latin verse. There is "quantity" in English 
verse, which occasionally is important; but it is rather obscure and 
will be passed over as not essential in elementary study. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

Five-stress (pentameter) 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, — (Gray) 
Six-stress (hexameter) 

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channels keep. 

(Milton) 
Seven-stress (heptameter) 

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away 

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; 

{Byron, p. 106) 

Turning to the arrangement of strong (or stressed) and light 
syllables within the line, we find in most of the foregoing exam- 
ples that the syllable that carries the tune is preceded by a light 
one, this arrangement being repeated enough times to make up 
the line. If we indicate this by marking the light syllables with 
a cross, x, and cutting the pairs of syllables apart by upright 
bars, so as to show how the pattern repeats, we shall have 

X / X / X ^ X / X / 

The cur [ few tolls | the knell | of part | ing day, 

This movement (x ') is called iambic; it is the commonest rhythm 
in English verse. " When the accent is reversed, so that the 
light syllable follows the strong one (' x) it is called trochaic; as, 

/ X / X / X / x ^ X 

Art thou I poor, yet | hast thou | golden ] slumbers? 

(Dekker) 

Sometimes two light syllables, instead of one, are associated 
with a strong one. When the light ones come first (xx '), we have 
anapaestic movement: 

XX/X X/ XX/ XX / 

When repos j ing that night | on my pal | let of straw 

XX/ XX/ XX / XX/ 

By the wolf- | scaring fag | got that guard | ed the slain, 

(Campbell, p. 179) 

When two light syllables follow the strong one (' xx), the verse 
is dactylic: 



LYRIC POETRY 13 

/ XX / XX 

Fast they come, | fast they come; 

/ X X / X 

See how they | gather! {Scott, p. 81) 

These are the chief rhythms of English verse; but the poets 
seldom or never carry them out in a purely mechanical fashion, 
any more than a musician tries to play exactly Uke a pianola. 
For the sake of throwing emphasis on an important word, or of 
changing the time, for the moment, to suit the thought, or of 
making a significant pause at the end or the middle of a Hne, 
or merely of hghtness and variety of touch, the poet may do one 
of three things: 

(1) Add or insert an extra Hght syllable: 

X Xy XX/ XX/ X X/ X 

In the down | hill of life | when I find | I'm declin | ing, 

(Collins) 

X / X / X / X X , 

The nect | arine | and cur | ions peach — (Marvel) 

(2) Omit a light syllable or more, leaving pauses or "rests" to 
fill out the meter: 

/ X / X / X / X 

Souls of I Poets I dead and | gone, o 

/ X / X / X y X 

What E I lysium | have ye | known, o 

/ X / X / X / X 

Happy, I field or | mossy | cavern 

/ X y X / X / X 

Choicer | than the | Mermaid | Tavern? 

(Keats, p. 113) 

Xy X, X/XyX/X y 

The fields | o breathe | o sweet, the dais | ies kiss | our feet, 

Xy XyX /X y Xy Xy 

o Young I o lov I ers meet, | old wives | a-sun | ning sit. — (Nash) 
^ J y. , X y X y 

O what I can ail | thee, knight- | at-arms, 

X y X y X J X i 

Alone I and pale | ly loit | ering? 

X y XyX y X y 

The sedge | has with | er'd from | the lake 

X t X , X y 

And no | o birds 1 o sing. (Keats, p. 68) 



14 INTRODUCTION 

(3) Throw the accent in an unexpected place, as by introduc- 
ing a trochaic foot into an iambic Une. This is most commonly 
done after a pause, as at the beginning of a new hne, or a new 
thought: 

/ X X / X / X / 

Park, clouds, | away, | and wel | come day. — {Heywood) 

X , X/X/ X/ /XXy 

Then blooms | o each | o thing, | then maids | dance in [ a ring. 

(Nash) 

Aside from these easily recognized variations of rhythm, EngUsh 
words vary so much in their accent that we have not a sharp 
division into Ught and strong syllables, but a series of many 
gradations, from almost no sound at all, to a heavy stress. Some 
times the stress will be sharp and clear cut, as in 

"Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
On the mountain dawns the day; 
All the jolly chase is here 
With hawk and horse and hunting spear." 

(Scott, p. 133) 

Sometimes the stress is so evenly placed as to leave in doubt 
whether one syllable is heavier than another. This gives an 
even, slow movement, full of dignity; as in Sidney's line: 

"With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climbst the skies!" 

Sometimes one accent seems to be demanded by the verse, an- 
other by the sense, with the claims so evenly divided that the 
accent is said to "hover" between the two. Of the following 
lines, the first begins with an accent clearly reversed : the second, 
with hovering accent. 

"Never did sun more beautifully steep 
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill." 

(Wordsworth, p. 146) 

These, and other variations, form to the trained ear one of the 
chief dehghts of versification. The poet, however, must not 
introduce so many pf them as to leave any doubt as to what is 



LYRIC POETRY 15 

the fundajnental rhythm from which he is varying. And the 
variations must not be due to carelessness or lack of skill, but 
must be such as to strengthen the beauty and effectiveness of 
the verse. 

The largest unit of verse-form is the stanza, a group of lines 
bound together by some systematic scheme, and usually by the 
rime. The simplest group, two equal lines riming, is called a 
couplet. The "Ode on the Poets" by Keats (p. 34) is written 
in couplets. Lines grouped in threes are called triplets or tercets. 
They may be unrimed, or rimed; of equal or unequal length; 
as in the following: 

"I have had playmates, I have had companions, 
In my days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays; 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." 

{Lamb, p. 103) 
" Whenas in silks my Julia goes 
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows 
That liquefaction of her clothes." 

{Her rick) 
"Whoe'er she be. 
That not impossible She 
That shall command my heart and me — " 

{Crashaw) 

A group of four lines makes a quatrain; the most frequent 
arrangement being the "ballad meter," or "common meter" of 
the hymn-books, with four feet in the first and third lines (which 
may rime) and three feet in the second and fourth (which must 
rime). Examples are Herrick's "Gather ye Rosebuds," and 
Campbell's "Lord Ulhn's Daughter" (p. 52). There are many 
other arrangements, both as to length of Hne and rime. When 
we get more than four lines in the stanza, there are various 
combinations in frequent use, and an almost countless number 
that have been tried by individual poets; many of them are 
analyzed in standard books on versification. The student will 
find much interest in the ingenuity of poets in inventng new 
stanza forms, and the unexpected beauties resulting. The more 



16 INTRODUCTION 

complex the stanza is, the more it depends on rime to bind the 
parts together, and to make clear the structure. 

Rime is Hkeness of sound in words, a likeness which must 
include the last accented vowel and all of the word that follows 
it. It is the sound, not the spelhng, that counts; so we find 
Wordsworth (p. 158) riming cloud — crowd, hills — daffodils, 
trees — breeze. If the final syllable is not accented, the rime 
must go back to the last one that is accented. Byron (p. 43) 
rimes daughters — waters, causing — pausing, gleaming — 
dreaming; and Hood (p. 115) rimes unfortunate — importunate, 
tenderly — slenderly. But the likeness in sound must not go 
further back than the last accented vowel, or we have not rime, 
but identity — even if the spelling differs. Thus see is not a 
good rime for sea. In studying verse, it is convenient to indicate 
lines that rime by the same letter, as a, 6, or c, and lines that 
do not rime, by x. Thus the rime scheme of Wordsworth's 
"Daffodils" (p. 158) would be described as ababcc; the rime 
scheme of Campbell's "Hohenhnden" (p. 93) as aaax. 

Two of the more complex forms of verse are so important in 
Enghsh poetry, and so well represented in this collection, as to 
need special note. These are the sonnet and the ode. 

The sonnet always has just fourteen lines, of the same length 
and rhythm, five iambic feet. The rime scheme varies, accord- 
ing to whether the poet is following strictly the model of the 
Itahan sonnet (from which ours was originally taken) or the 
freer form used by Shakespeare and the writers of his time. 
The Italian sonnet divides the fourteen lines into two groups, the 
octave (eight lines) and the sestet (six Unes). The octave has 
only two rimes, arranged abbaabba, the sestet may have two or 
three, arranged in any of a variety of ways, the preferred schemes 
being cdecde, cdcdcd, cdedce, and cddcee. The thought should be 
such that while there is but one central idea, it is presented in 
one Ught in the octave, in another in the sestet. This is a diffi- 
cult, rather formal verse; but fine and dignified, when well 
handled. Very noble examples are Milton's sonnet "On his 
Bhndness," and Wordsworth's on Milton (p. 92). 

The Shakespearian sonnet is divided into tliree quatrains and 



LYRIC POETRY 17 

a couplet. The quatrains take up an idea or a question and 
present it in several different lights, — perhaps by a succession 
of different comparisons; the couplet binds the whole poem into 
a unit by phrasing aptly the poet's conclusion, explanation, or 
fundamental thought. One of the best of this type is Shake- 
speare's 

"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eye." 

The ode is a long form of poem, taken over from the Greek 
poets, especially Pindar. Originally, the Greek odes, which 
were chanted or sung by a chorus, to the accompaniment of 
music and stately dancing, were divided into three sections. 
The first two (called strophe and antistrophe) had to be alike in 
meter, as the singers moved to one side during the strophe, and 
back during the antistrophe. They stood still during the third 
section, or epode, which accordingly did not have to match the 
others in meter. In EngUsh odes, the three divisions are some- 
times called turn, counter-turn, and stand. They may be seen 
in Gray's ''The Progress of Poetry," where the first strophe or 
turn begins 

"Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake," 

the first antistrophe or counter-turn, 

"Oh Sovereign of the \\'illing soul!" 

and the first epode or stand, 

"Thee the voice, the dance obey," 

after which comes the second strophe, 

"Man's feeble race what ills await!" 

Most EngHsh odes, however, do not follow this pattern, tlie name 
being loosely applied to any long poem, with no fixed length of 
hne or stanza and no regularity to the rime except that every 
hne finds an answering rime somewhere. It is a form especially 
suited to recitation on pubHc occasions, and to the expression of 
important and dignified thought. 

So much for the mechanics of verse. The real art of poetry 



IS INTRODUCTION 

consists in filling these forms with words which are beautiful in 
themselves and which by their sound suggest the poet's thought 
This art of selecting words for their sound is known as tone- 
color. Sometimes tone-color Ues in the repetition of a single 
letter at the beginning of the stressed syllables, as the h in the 
hnes 

"Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon 
How can ye bloom sae fair!" 

This is known as alliteration. It used to be the chief element 
of EngHsh verse, before rime became popular; but now poets 
use it only sparingly; when it is too prominent, it seems tricky 
and artificial. A more subtle beauty comes from hiding the 
repeated letter in the middle of the word, Uke the / and the d in 
the following lines: 

"By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals." 

{Marlowe) 

These lines are particularly musical because the vowels and con- 
sonants are all such as flow into each other without jarring. 
A careful WTiter will avoid harsh letters, like s; as Tennyson 
said, he will "kick the geese out of the boat;" but a great master 
of verse can make even a line full of s's beautiful, Hke Shake- 
speare's 

' ' When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
I summon up remembrance of things past." 

The fitting of sound to meaning can be seen very plainly in 
Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," where the bard's songs, now 
of victory and feasting, now of love, now of vengeance, are 
imitated in the verse. In Cowper's "Loss of the Royal George" 
we feel the solemn, bell-like echo of the o and the a in 

"Toll for the Brave, 
The brave that are no more!" 

And we feel the whirling of the autumn wind, and the rattle of 
dry leaves, in Keat's Hnes (p. 205): 



FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE 19 

*'Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 
Yellow and black and pale and hectic red, 
Pestilence stricken multitudes." 

The same art is heard in Milton's 

"I hear the far-ofT curfew sound 
Over some wide watered shore, 
Swinging slow with sullen roar." 

And more subtly, in Shakespeare's 

"Beauty making beautiful old rhyme, 
In praise of ladies dead." 

But the appreciation of the tone-color is not a thing that can 
be learned in a moment; it grows with our knowledge of good 
poetry, and is one of the rewards of continued study. 



FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE 

1824-1897 

Palgrave's boyhood was such as to develop and refine in him a 
natural taste for the finer things of literature, which was to lead 
to The Golden Treasury. His father, for whom he was named, 
was a historical scholar of repute, who had been a friend of 
Southey, Scott, and Macaulay. His mother, when he came home 
from school, used to read to him from Dante, or the Faerie Queen, 
when he was not acting out w^ith his nearest brother scenes from 
Homer. We hear of the two boys beginning Caesar at seven, 
and "to their great delight " Homer and Horace at eleven, besides 
being interested in models and inventions. The family were 
also deeply religious. His brother, Gifford, later became a 
Jesuit missionary and a great traveler in unknown and danger- 
ous parts of the East. 

As a student at Oxford, Palgrave devoted his spare time to 
literature and art, filling his rooms with prints of famous works 
by Turner, Michael Angelo, and Correggio. He was known also 



20 INTRODUCTION 

for his gift of attracting about him many friends of similar tastes. 
He took his degree in 1847, with a "first" in Classics, having 
dropped out of college for a year (1846) to serve as private secre- 
tary to Gladstone. 

After a year as Fellow of Exeter College, he entered on what 
was to be his profession for thirty-five j^ears, as an official in the 
Education Oflice of the Privy Council, first as Examiner, later as 
Assistant Secretary; acting for a few years as Vice Principal of 
a training school for teachers. Several times his friends urged 
him to become a candidate for the Professorship of Poetry at 
Oxford. Once he had come forward for the post, but withdrew 
his name in favor of his friend the well known scholar, J. C. 
Shairp. It is pleasant to know that when the chair again became 
vacant in 1885, another friend, Matthew Arnold, refused to 
present himself so that the Professorship might go to Palgrave. 
He held it for twelve years, until his death in 1897. 

Besides Gladstone, Shairp, and Arnold, Palgrave knew many 
of the notable men of his age, being drawn to them by a common 
appreciation of the finest things in art and literature. He was 
a friend of Thackeray, Carlyle, Browning, the painter Holman 
Hunt, the sculptor Woolner. His friendship with Tenn\'son, 
lasting for forty-three years, he spoke of as "one of the chief est 
influences in his life." In 1859, when he was thirty-five and 
Tennyson fifty-one, Palgrave went on a walking-trip with Tenny- 
son, Woolner, and others through Cornwall, the "King Arthur 
Country," which Tennyson had just been writing about in the 
Idylls of the King. On this romantic trip, plans were made for 
The Golden Treasury, which Palgrave completed within the 
next year and a half. He received much help and encouragement 
from Tennyson, who read over with him the entire collection, 
making valuable suggestions. 

Palgrave brought out various other collections of verse: a 
Children's Treasury, a Treasury of Sacred Song, editions of 
Herrick, Keats, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, of Shakespeare's 
Songs and Sonnets; and finally, in the last year of his life, a 
continuation of The Golden Treasury comprising poems wTitten 
after 1830. He also wrote several books of original verse, includ- 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 21 

ing a volume of hymns and one of historical poems, called 
Visions of England. His poems are thoughtful, and careful ir> 
style and versification, but are not widely read. He tried his 
hand at a love-story, Preciosa, and a book of children's tales, 
The Five Days Entertainments at Wentworth Grange. For some 
years, he was art critic on the Saturday Review, and published 
some essays in this field. Some of his Oxford lectures were 
expanded into a book under the title, Landscape in Poetry from 
Homer to Tennyson. But Palgrave's chief talent lay not so 
much in original writing as in a fine and highly trained appreci- 
ation of the best that others had done; the gift that made him the 
welcome companion of the great writers of his times, and that 
enabled him to compile, in his early manhood, that collection of 
the best English lyrics which has indeed proved a ''golden 
treasury." 

The story of his charming family life, his friendships, and his 
hterary career is told by his daughter, Miss Gwenllian F. Pal- 
grave, in her book Francis Turner Palgrave: his Journals and 
Memories of his Life London, 1899. 



CRITICAL OPINIONS OF THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

"The judgment of two generations has not only confiriaied 
the long series of judgments upon English poets and poetry 
which Professor Palgrave's work involved, but has accepted that 
work as a kind of original creation. The book is one of the 
English classics; and its quahty and place are so marked and 
distinct that we have come to think of it as a contribution to 
English literature. Its individuahty lies, however, entirely in 
the insight, the critical discernment and the taste which it illus- 
trates. These are so nearly infallible that the mass of other 
men's work collected in The Golden Treasury to which Pro- 
fessor Palgrave added not a line of his own, seems somehow to 
belong to the editor." 

Hamilton W. Mabie 

{The Bookman, 6: 470: Jan., 1908) 



22 INTRODUCTION 

"Using the poems of others, Palgrave has made a mosaic of 
his own, — a work of design and creative art. Many other collec- 
tions exist which contain the same poems and masses of equal 
work. But in all these the pieces are ill arranged; they are 
chaotically heaped; they swear at each other; they have no 
general effect. But in Palgrave's work, so true is the tone from 
beginning to end, so absolute the harmony, that the poems help 
each other with reflected lustre; they deepen each other's notes 
with choral echo. This effect has been produced by ruthless 
suppression of much of the mightiest lyric poetry of the language. 
- . . The fierce expressions of love, of revolt, of despair, — 
ecstatic visions or opium dreams, — nothing of these is here. 
And what is the result? The book brings up before us a perfect 
image of that England which we all keep in our thoughts, — the 
image of a land of rich woods and long-tamed fields of flowery 
hedges and rose-fronted cottages, of war-cradled castles and 
pensive homes of fame. No stain is on the picture, which is one 
of ordered splendor and secluded peace." 

Charles Leonard Moore 

{The Dial, 31: 175. Sept., 1901) 



"It is not possible here to escape from the noblest, the most 
distinguished, the loveliest English poetry; and there is nothing, 
or scarcely anything, which does not reach perfection in its own 
line. This little green book . . . has been the companion 
the teacher, the guide, philosopher, and friend of every English 
verse-writer born, let us say, since 1840. Who shall dare to esti- 
mate how valuable have been the splendour and purity of its 
contents in holding up the tradition of a great style in English 

poetry?" 

^ ^ {Saturday Renew, Sept. 19, 1896, p. 312) 



" It may be questioned whether, after Arnold, any other critic 
of our time contributed so much to educate public taste where in 
this country it most needs such education. . . . He had no 
taint of vulgarity, of charlatanism, of insincerity. He never 



HOW TO TEACH THE GOLDEN TREASURY 23 

talked or wrote the cant of the chques or of the multitude. He 
understood and loved what was excellent, he had no toleration 
for what was common or second rate; he was not of the crowd. 
... In the best and most comprehensive sense of the term, he 
was a man of classical temper, taste, and culture, and had all the 
insight and discernment, all the instincts and sympathies which 
are the result of such qualifications." 

Professor Charlton Collins (Quoted in Miss 
Palgrave's Journals and Memories, p. 25.) 



HOW TO TEACH THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

A collection of poems like this is by no means to be taught 
through from cover to cover, like an arithmetic. It is no matter 
if the pupils read no more than half or quarter, or even fewer, of 
the poems, provided they gain an intelligent appreciation of those 
they do read. Neither should poetry be made an occasion for 
the teaching of all sorts of extraneous things, — literary history, 
biography, or gossip, rhetorical principles, "notes," or even too 
much of the technique of verse, except as these definitely help 
in the apJpreciation of the verses under consideration. There 
should be much reading aloud and reciting, by both pupils and 
teacher; good oral rendering is the final test of one's real grasp of 
a poem. The spirit of the recitation should always be not that 
of fulfilling a task, or of acquiring useful information, but of 
appreciative enjoyment, and the desire to communicate that 
enjoyment to others. 

It may be assumed that every member of the class has already 
a fund of verse-memories, — Mother Goose rimes; hymns and 
songs; bits from Stevenson's CkiWs Garden, from Longfellow 
and Whittier and Tennyson; perhaps much more. A good first 
lesson, to open up the general subject, would be to ask every 
pupil to run rapidly through the book, marking any poems that 
are old favorites, and be ready to read one or more of them aloud 
well enough to interest the class. This will bring a much greater 
response than one recitation provides time for. The natural 



24 INTRODUCTION 

step then will be to run through the book for different kinds of 
subjects that have interested poets; to see how different poets 
have felt about nature, about patriotism, about love, about 
death. By the fourth or fifth lesson, it will be possible to take 
up technical questions of versification, pretty much as treated in 
the foregoing pages, which may be divided into parts suited to the 
maturity of the class. The illustrative quotations in these pages 
have been chosen partly with a view of interesting pupils in 
some of the finest poem?', and those most likely to appeal to them. 
In preparing a lesson, pupils should look up the complete poem, 
trace through it the technical element described, and try to find 
the same thing elsewhere. The test must always be the sound: 
can the pupil convince the class by his rendering of the poem, that 
his understanding of its thought and rhythm is correct? After 
perhaps a couple of weeks of technical study, the class should 
spend the rest of the available time on some special subject. 
This may be (1) a more thorough study of selected types of 
poetrj^ as the song for music, the sonnet, the pastoral, the ode; 

(2) a review of the chief historical periods of English lyric verse; or 

(3) special study of a few leading poets (such as those named in 
the list of the College Entrance Requirements for eastern colleges) 
with the aim of learning to distinguish their individualities, their 
views of life, their artistic method. 

Of special teaching devices, the best is reading aloud, provided 
it is done not in a mechanical or indifferent way, but with an 
earnest effort to get the poet's thought and express it to the 
hearers. It is assumed that the pupil has access to a dictionary 
and a handbook of mythology, if he needs them; and that he will 
refer to the notes, not for all that might be said for complete 
understanding of the poem, but for what may help towards an 
imaginative grasp of the main thought. There should be much 
memorizing — some of the formal kind, more of the unconscious 
kind that will grow out of constant cross-references in class- 
room discussion. Illustration or quotation from other collections 
of poetry should be encouraged; a profitable scheme is for each 
pupil to start a scrap book of newspaper and magazine verse, 
noting opposite each clipping what it was selected for, — the 



BOOKS FOR FURTHER STUDY 25 

idea, the rhythm, the stanza form, the imagery, or what. If 
possible, have the class learn the tunes and sing some of the 
Ijnrics, such as the Shakespeare songs. Those who care to, should 
be encouraged to try their hands at original verse; indeed Prof. 
Brander Mathews recommends this as an excellent way to learn 
to write prose. But the best devices will be those invented by 
a teacher who loves the subject; and the best results will be the 
often unexpressed desire to know more of our great poetry. 



BOOKS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

First of all, the school hbrary should have some of the standard 
collections, like The Oxford Book of English Verse, Miss Wiggin's 
Golden Numbers, and Stedman's Victorian Anthology and Ameri- 
can Anthology, and Ward's English Poets, as well as The Golden 
Treasury, Part Second. There are also many good special col- 
lections of poems grouped by centuries, or by verse forms, — 
sonnets, odes, and others. For verse form, the most readable 
book is Brander Mathews' A Study of Versification; the most 
compact and inclusive. Bright and Miller's Elements of English 
Versification; the most concise treatment of the whole field is 
Francis B. Gummere's Handbook of Poetics. Raymond M. Alden's 
English Verse gives a scholarly discussion of the subject with 
numerous well-chosen examples. Max Kaluza's Sliort History of 
English Versification translated by A. C. Dunstan, traces the 
historical changes in our verse-forms. E. C. Stedman's Nature 
and Elements of Poetry discusses certain general questions of 
poetic art. G. L. Raymond's Poetry as a Representative Art is 
controversial, but very suggestive, especially as regards oral 
interpretation. Percival Chubb's The Teaching of English, 
especially Chapter 8, will be found of much value. The music 
for many poems in this book will be found in L. C. Elson's Shake- 
speare in Music, J. C. Dick's The Songs of Robert Burns and in 
The Laurel Song Book. 



El's Tov \€i/i(vva KadlcraSf edpeTev ^repov f*0' er^pip 
alpofxevos dypev/j.'' dvdiojp ado/xivq. '/'t'X? — 



TO ALFRED TENNYSON 
POET LAUREATE 

This book in its progress has recalled often to my memory a 
man with whose friendship we were once honoured, to whom no 
region of English Literature was unfamiliar, and who, whilst 
rich in all the noble gifts of Nature was most eminently distin- 
guished by the noblest and the rarest, — just judgment and 
high-hearted patriotism. It would have been hence a peculiar 
pleasure and pride to dedicate what I have endeavoured to make 
a true national Anthology of three centuries to Henry Hallam. 
But he is beyond the reach of any human tokens of love and 
reverence; and I desire therefore to place before it a name 
united with his by associations which whilst Poetry retains her 
hold on the minds of Englishmen are not hkely to be forgotten. 

Your encouragement, given while traversing the wild scenery 
of Treryn Dinas, led me to begin the work: and it has been 
completed under your advice and assistance. For the favour 
now asked I have thus a second reason: and to this I may add, 
the homage which is your right as Poet, and the gratitude due 
to a Friend, whose regard I rate at no common value. 

Permit me, then, to inscribe to j^ourself a book which I hope 
may be found by many a hfelong fountain of innocent and exalted 
pleasure; a source of animation to friends when they meet; and 
able to sweeten solitude itself with best society, — with the 
companionship of the wise and the good, with the beauty which 
the eye can not see, and the music only heard in silence. If 
this collection proves a storehouse of delight to Labour and to 
Poverty — if it teaches those indifferent to the Poets to love 
them, and those who love them to love them more, the aim and 
the desire entertained in framing it will be fully accomplished. 
May, 1861. F. T. P. 

27 



PREFACE 



BY FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE 

This little Collection dififers, it is believed, from others in the 
attempt made to include in it all the best Original Lyrical pieces 
and Songs in our language, by writers not living, — and none 
beside the best. Many familiar verses will hence be met with; 
many also which should be famihar: — the Editor will regard 
as his fittest readers those who love Poetry so well, that he can 
offer them nothing not already known and valued. 

The Editor is acquainted with no strict and exhaustive defini- 
tion of Lyrical Poetry; but he has found the task of practical 
decision increase in clearness and in facility as he advanced with 
his work, whilst keeping in view a few simple principles. Lyrical 
has been here held essentially to imply that each Poem shall 
turn on some single thought, feeling, or situation. In accordance 
with this, narrative, descriptive, and didactic poems — unless 
accompanied by rapidity of movement, brevity, and the colour- 
ing of human passion — have been excluded. Humourous 
poetry, except in the very unfrequent instances where a truly 
poetical tone pervades the whole, with what is strictly personal, 
occasional, and religious, has been considered foreign to the idea 
of the book. Blank verse and the ten-syllable couplet with all 
pieces markedly dramatic, have been rejected as alien from 
what is commonly understood by Song, and rarely conforming 
to Lyrical conditions in treatment. But it is not anticipated, 
nor is it possible, that all readers shall think the line accurately 
drawn. Some poems, as Gray's Elegy, the Allegro and Penseroso, 
Wordsworth's Ruth or Campbell's Lord Ullin, might be claimed 
with perhaps equal justice for a narrative or descriptive selec- 
tion: whilst with reference especially to Ballads and Sonnets, 

29 



30 PREFACE 

the Editor can only state that he has taken his utmost pains to 
decide without caprice or partiality. 

This also is all he can plead in regard to a point even more 
liable to question: what degree of merit should give rank among 
the Best. That a Poem shall be worthy of the writer's genius 

— that it shall reach a perfection commensurate with its aim — 
that we should require finish in proportion to brevity — that 
passion, colour, and originahty cannot atone for serious imper- 
fections in clearness, unity, cr truth — that a few good lines do 
not make a good poem — that popular estimate is serviceable 
as a guidepost more than as a compass — above all, that excel- 
lence should be looked for rather in the Whole than in the Parts 

— such and other such canons have been always steadily 
regarded. He may, however, add that the pieces chosen, and a 
far larger number rejected, have been carefully and repeatedly 
considered; and that he has been aided throughout by two 
friends of independent and exercised judgment, besides the 
distinguished person addressed in the Dedication. It is hoped 
that by this procedure the volume has been freed from that 
one-sidedness which must beset individual decisions : — but for 
the final choice the Editor is alone responsible. 

It would obviously have been invidious to apply the standard 
aimed at in this Collection to the Living. Not even in the cases 
where this might be done without offense, does it appear wise 
to attempt to anticipate the verdict of the future or our contem- 
poraries. Should the book last, poems by Tennyson, Bryant, 
Clare, Lowell, and others, will no doubt claim and obtain their 
place among the best. But the Editor trusts that this will be 
effected by other bards, and in days far distant. Chalmers' 
vast Collection, with the whole works of all accessible poets not 
contained in it, and the best Anthologies of different periods, 
have been twice systematically read through: and it is hence 
improbable that any omissions which may be regretted are due 
to oversight. The poems are printed entire, except in a very 
few instances (specified in the notes) where a stanza has been 
omitted. The omissions have been risked only when the piece 
could be thus brought to a closer lyrical unity: and, as essen- 



PREFACE 31 

tially opposed to this unity, extracts, obviously such, are excluded. 
In regard to the text, the purpose of the book has appeared to 
justify the choice of the most poetical version, wherever more 
than one exists: and much labour has been given to present 
each poem, in disposition, spelling, and punctuation, to the great- 
est advantage. 

For the permission under which the copyright pieces are 
inserted, thanks are due to the respective proprietors, without 
whose liberal concurrence the scheme of the collection would 
have been defeated. 

In the arrangement, the most poetically effective order has 
been attempted. The English mind has passed through phases 
of thought and cultivation so various and so opposed during 
these three centuries of Poetry, that as rapid passage between 
Old and New, like rapid alteration of the eye's focus in looking 
at the landscape, will always be wearisome and hurtful to the 
sense of beauty. The poems have been therefore distributed 
into Books Corresponding, I to the Ninety years closing about 
1616, II thence to 1700, III to 1800, IV to the half Century just 
ended. Or, looking at the Poets who more or less give each 
portion its distinctive character, they might be called the Books 
of Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and Wordsworth. The volume, 
in this respect, so far as the limitations of its range allow, accu- 
rately reflects the natural growth and evolution of our Poetry. 
A rigidly Chronological sequence, however, rather fits a collec- 
tion aiming at instruction rather than at pleasure, and the Wis- 
dom which comes through Pleasure: — within each book the 
pieces have therefore been arranged in gradations of feeling or 
subject. The development of the symphonies of Mozart and 
Beethoven has been here thought of as a model, and nothing 
placed without careful consideration. And it is hoped that the 
contents of this Anthology will thus be found to present a certain 
unity, as episodes, in the noble language of Shelley, " to that great 
Poem which all poets, like the co-operating thoughts of one great 
mind, have built up since the beginning of the world." 

As he closes his long survey, the Editor trusts he may add 
without egotism, that he has found the vague general verdict 



32 PREFACE 

of popular Fame more just than those have thought, who, with 
too severe a criticism, would confine judgments on Poetry to 
"the selected few of many generations." Not many appear to 
have gained reputation without some gift or performance that, 
in due degree, deserved it: and if no verses by certain writers 
who show less strength than sweetness or more thought than 
mastery in expression, are printed in this volume, it should not be 
imagined that they have been excluded without much hesitation 
and regret, far less that they have been slighted. Throughout 
this vast and pathetic array of singers now silent, few have been 
honoured with the name of Poet, and have not possessed a skill 
in words, a sympathy with beauty, a tenderness of feeling, or 
seriousness in reflection, which render their works — although 
never perhaps attaining that loftier and finer excellence here 
required — better worth reading than much of what fills the 
scanty hours that most men spare for self-improvement or for 
pleasure in any ofits more elevated and permanent forms. And 
if this be true of even mediocre poetry, for how much more are 
we indebted to the best! Like the famous fountain of the Azores, 
but with a more various power, the magic of this Art can confer 
on each period of life its appropriate blessing: on early years 
Experience, on maturity Calm, on age Youthfulness. Poetry 
gives "treasures more golden than gold," leading us in higher and 
healthier ways than those of the world, and interpreting to us 
the works of Nature. But she speaks best for herself. Her 
true accents, if the plan has been executed with success, may be 
heard throughout the following pages: — wherever the Poets 
of England are honoured, wherever the dominant language of 
the world is spoken, it is hoped that they will find fit audience. 



BOOK FOURTH 

CCVIII 

TO THE MUSES 

Whether on Ida's shady brow, 
Or in the chambers of the East, 

The chambers of the sun, that now 
From ancient melody have ceased; 

Whether in Heaven ye wander fair, 
Or the green corners of the earth, 

Or the blue regions of the air, 

Where the melodious winds have birth; 

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove 
Beneath the bosom of the sea, 

Wandering in many a coral grove, — 
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry; 

How have you left the ancient love 
That bards of old enjoy 'd in you! 
The languid strings do scarcely move. 
The sound is forced, the notes are few. 

W. Blake 
33 



34 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCIX 

ODE ON THE POETS 

Bards of Passion and of Mirth 
Ye have left your souls on earth! 
Have ye souls in heaven too, 
Double-lived in regions new? 

— Yes, and those of heaven commune 
With the spheres of sun and moon; 
With the noise of fountains wond'rous 
And the parle of voices thund'rous; 
With the whisper of heaven's trees 
And one another, in soft ease 
Seated on Elysian lawns 
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns; 
Underneath large blue-bells tented, 
Where the daisies are rose-scented, 
And the rose herself has got 
Perfume which on earth is not; 
Where the nightingale doth sing 
Not a senseless, tranced thing. 
But divine melodious truth; 
Philosophic numbers smooth; 
Tales and golden histories 
Of heaven and its mysteries. 

Thus ye live on high, and then 
On the earth ye live again; 
And the souls ye left behind you 



BOOK FOURTH 35 

Teach us, here, the way to find you, 

Where your other souls are joying. 

Never slumber'd, never cloying. 

Here, your earth-born souls still speak 

To mortals, of their little week; 

Of their sorrows and delights; 

Of their passions and their spites; 

Of their glory and their shame; 

What doth strengthen and what maim : — 

Thus ye teach us, every day, 

Wisdom, though fled far away. 

Bards of Passion and of Mirth 
Ye have left your souls on earth! 
Ye have souls in heaven too. 
Double-lived in regions new ! 

J. Keats 

CCX 

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S 
HOMER 

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold 
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 
Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: 

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 



36 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

— Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken; 
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 

He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — ° 
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

J. Keats 

CCXI 

LOVE 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
All are but ministers of Love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 

Oft in my waking dreams do I 
Live o'er again that happy hour. 
When mid-way on the mount I lay, 
Beside the ruin'd tower. 

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene 
Had blended with the lights of eve; 
And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
My own dear Genevieve! 

She lean'd against the armed man, 
The statue of the armed knight; 
She stood and listen'd to my lay. 
Amid the lingering light. 



BOOK FOURTH 37 

Few sorrows hath she of her own, 
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! 
She loves me best, whene'er I sing 
The songs that make her grieve. 

I play'd a soft and doleful air, 
I sang an old and moving story — 
An old rude song, that suited well 
That ruin wild and hoary. 

She listen'd with a flitting blush. 
With downcast eyes and modest grace; 
For well she knew, I could not choose 
But gaze upon her face. 

I told her of the Knight that wore 
Upon his shield a burning brand; 
And that for ten long years he woo'd 
The Lady of the Land. 

I told her how he pined: and ah! 
The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
With which I sang another's love 
Interpreted my own. 

She listen'd with a flitting blush, 
With downcast eyes, and modest grace; 
And she forgave me, that I gazed 
Too fondly on her face! 

But when I told the cruel scorn 

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, 



38 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, 
Nor rested day nor night; 

That sometimes from the savage den, 
And sometimes from the darksome shade, 
And sometimes starting up at once 
In green and sunny glade, — 

There came and look'd him in the face 
An angel beautiful and bright; 
And that he knew it was a Fiend, 
This miserable Knight! 

And that unknowing what he did, 
He leap'd amid a murderous band. 
And saved from outrage worse than death 
The Lady of the Land ; — 

And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees: 
And how she tended him in vain — 
And ever strove to expiate 

The scorn that crazed his brain; — 

And that she nursed him in a cave, 
And how his madness went away, 
When on the yellow forest-leaves 
A dying man he lay; — 

His djdng words — but when I reached 
That tenderest strain of all the ditty, 
My faltering voice and pausing harp 
Disturb'd her soul with pity! 



BOOK FOURTH 39 

All impulses of soul and sense 
Had thriird my guileless Genevieve; 
The music and the doleful tale, 
The rich and balmy eve; 

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, 
An undistinguishable throng, 
And gentle wishes long subdued, 
Subdued and cherished long! 

She wept with pity and delight, 
She blush'd with love, and virgin shame; 
And like the murmur of a dream, 
I heard her breathe my name. 

Her bosom heaved — she stepp'd aside, 
As conscious of my look she stept — 
Then suddenly, with timorous eye 
She fled to me and wept. 

She half inclosed me with her arms, 
She press'd me with a meek embrace; 
And bending back her head, look'd up, 
And gazed upon my face. 

'Twas partly love, and partly fear, 
And partly 'twas a bashful art 
That I might rather feel, than see, 
The swelling of her heart. 

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm 
And told her love v/ith virgin pride; 



40 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

And so I won my Genevieve, 

My bright and beauteous Bride. 

S. T. Coleridge 

CCXII 
ALL FOR LOVE 

TALK not to me of a name great in story; 

The days of our youth are the days of our glory; 
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty 
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. 

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is 

wrinkled? 
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled : 
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary — 
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory? 

Oh fame! — if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, 
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover 
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her. 

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee; 
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee; 
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, 

1 knew it was love, and I felt it was glory. 

Lord Byron 



BOOK FOURTH 41 

CCXIII 
THE OUTLAW 

O Brignall banks are wild and fair, 

And Greta woods are green, 
And you may gather garlands there 

Would grace a summer-queen. 
And as I rode by Dalton-Hall 

Beneath the turrets high, 
A Maiden on the castle-wall 

Was singing merrily: 

* Brignall banks are fresh and fair, 

And Greta woods are green; 
I'd rather rove with Edmund there 
Than reign our English queen.' 

* If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me, 

To leave both toAver and town. 
Thou first must guess what life lead we 

That dwell by dale and down. 
And if thou canst that riddle read. 

As read full w^ell you may. 
Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed 

As blithe as Queen of May.' 
Yet sung she, ' Brignall banks are fair, 

And Greta woods are green; 
I'd rather rove with Edmund there 

Than reign our English queen. 

*I read you, by j^our bugle-horn 
And by your palfrey good, 



42 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

I read you for a ranger sworn 

To keep the king's greenwood.' 
'A Ranger, lady, winds his horn, 

An 'tis at peep of Hght; 
His blast is heard at merry morn, 

And mine at dead of night.' 
Yet sung she, ' Brignall banks are fair, 

And Greta woods are gay; 
I would I were with Edmund there 

To reign his Queen of May! 

'With burnish'd brand and musketoon 

So gallantly 3^ou come, 
I read you for a bold Dragoon 

That lists the tuck of drum.' 
* I list no more the tuck of drum, 

No more the trumpet hear; 
But when the beetle sounds his hum 

My comrades take the spear. 
And O! though Brignall banks be fair 

And Greta woods be gay. 
Yet mickle must the maiden dare 

Would reign my Queen of May! 

'Maiden! a nameless life I lead, 

A nameless death I'll die; 
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead 

Were better mate than I ! 
And when I'm with my comrades met 

Beneath the greenwood bough, — 
What once we were we all forgot. 

Nor think what we are now,' 



BOOK FOURTH 43 

Chorus 
*Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, 

And Greta woods are green, 
And you may gather garlands there 
Would grace a summer-queen.' 

Sir W. Scott 

CCXIV 

There be none of Beauty's daughters 

With a magic like Thee; 
And like music on the waters 

Is thy sweet voice to me: 
When, as if its sound were causing 
The charmed ocean's pausing. 
The waves lie still and gleaming, 
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming: 

And the midnight moon is weaving 

Her bright chain o'er the deep; 
Whose breast is gently heaving 

As an infant's asleep: 
So the spirit bows before thee 
To listen and adore thee; 
With a full but soft emotion, 
Like the swell of Summer's ocean. 

Lord Byron 



44 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXV 

THE INDIAN SERENADE 

I ARISE from dreams of Thee 
In the first sweet sleep of night, 
When the winds are breathing low 
And the stars are shining bright: 
I arise from dreams of thee, 
And a spirit in my feet 
Hath led me — who knows how? 
To thy chamber-window, Sweet! 

The wandering airs they faint 
On the dark, the silent stream — 
The champak odours fail 
Like sweet thoughts in a dream; 
The nightingale's complaint 
It dies upon her heart. 
As I must die on thine 

beloved as thou art! 

Oh lift me from the grass! 

1 die, I faint, I fail! 

Let thy love in kisses rain 
On my lips and eyelids pale. 
My cheek is cold and white, alas? 
My heart beats loud and fast; 
Oh! press it close to thine again 
Where it will break at last. 

P. B. Shelley 



BOOK FOURTH 45 



CCXVI 



She walks in beauty, like the night 
Of cloudless climes and starry skies, 
And all that's best of dark and bright 
Meet in her aspect and her eyes; 
Thus mellow'd to that tender light 
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 
Had half impair' d the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress 
Or softly lightens o'er her face, 
^Vhere thoughts serenely sweet express 
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

And on that cheek and o'er that brow 

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent. 

The smiles that win, the tints that glow 

But tell of days in goodness spent, — 

A mind at peace with all below , 

A heart whose love is innocent. 

Lord Byron 

ccxvn 

She was a Phantom of delight 

When first she gleam'd upon my sight; 

A lovely Apparition, sent 

To be a moment's ornament; 

Her eyes as stars of twihght fair; 



46 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; 
But all things else about her drawn 
From May-time and the cheerful dawn; 
A dancing shape, an image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 

I saw her upon nearer view, 

A Spirit, yet a Woman too! 

Her household motions light and free, . 

And steps of virgin-liberty; 

A countenance in which did meet 

Sweet records, promises as sweet; 

A creature not too bright or good 

For human nature's daily food, 

For transient sorrows, simple wiles. 

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 

And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine; 
A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A traveller between life and death: 
The reason firm, the temperate will. 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; 
A perfect Woman, nobly plann'd 
To warn, to comfort, and command; 
And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
With something of an angel-light. 

W. Wordsworth 



BOOK FOURTH 47 

CCXVIII 

She is not fair to outward view 

As many maidens be; 
Her loveliness I never knew 

Until she smiled on me. 
O then I saw her eye was bright, 
A well of love, a spring of light. 

But now her looks are coy and cold, 

To mine they ne'er reply, 
And yet I cease not to behold 

The love-light in her eye: 
Her very frowns are fairer far 
Than smiles of other maidens are. 

H. Coleridge 

CCXIX 

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden; 
Thou needest not fear mine; 
My spirit is too deeply laden 
Ever to burthen thine. 

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion; 
Thou needest not fear mine; 
Innocent is the heart's devotion 
With which I worship thine. 

P. B. Shelley 



48 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXX 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 

Beside the springs of Dove; 
A maid whom there were none to praise, 

And very few to love. 

A violet by a mossy stone 

Half-hidden from the eye! 
— Fair as a star, when only one 

Is shining in the sky. 

She lived unknown, and few could know 

When Lucy ceased to be; 
But she is in her grave, and, oh. 

The difference to me! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXXI 

I travell'd among unknown men 

In lands beyond the sea; 
Nor, England! did I know till then 

What love I bore to thee. 

'Tis past, that melancholy dream! 

Nor will I quit thy shore 
A second time; for still I seem 

To love thee more and more. 

Among thy mountains did I feel 
The joy of my desire; 



BOOK FOURTH 49 

And she I cherish'd turn'd her wheel 
Beside an EngUsh fire. 

Thy mornings show'd, thy nights conceaPd 

The bowers where Lucy play'd; 
And thine too is the last green field 

That Lucy's eyes survey'd. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXXII 

THE EDUCATION OF NATURE 

Three years she grew in sun and shower; 

Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower 

On earth was never sown : 

This Child I to myself will take; 

She shall be mine, and I will make 

A lady of my own. 

'Myself will to my darling be 

Both law and impulse: and with me 

The girl, in rock and plain, 

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 

Shall feel an overseeing power 

To kindle or restrain. 

'She shall be sportive as the fawn 
That wild with glee across the lawn 
Or up the mountain springs; 
And her's shall be the breathing balm, 
And her's the silence and the calm 
Of mute insensate things. 



50 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

'The floating clouds their state shall lend 

To her; for her the willow bend; 

Nor shall she fail to see 

Ev'n in the motions of the storm 

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 

By silent sympathy. 

'The stars of midnight shall be dear 

To her; and she shall lean her ear 

In many a secret place 

Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 

And beauty born of murmuring sound 

Shall pass into her face. 

'And vital feelings of delight 

Shall rear her form to stately height, 

Her virgin bosom swell; 

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give 

While she and I together live 

Here in this happy dell.' 

Thus Nature spake — The work was done — 

How soon my Lucy's race was run! 

She died, and left to me 

This heath, this calm and quiet scene; 

The memory of what has been. 

And never more will be. 

W. Wordsworth 



BOOK FOURTH 51 



CCXXIII 



A SLUMBER did my spirit seal; 

I had no human fears: 
She seem'd a thing that could not feel 

The touch of earthly years. 

No motion has she now, no force; 

She neither hears nor sees; 
RoU'd round in earth's diurnal course 

With rocks, and stones, and trees. 

W. Wordsworth 



CCXXIV 
A LOST LOVE 

I MEET thy pensive, moonlight face; 

Thy thrilling voice I hear; 
And former hours and scenes retrace, 

Too fleeting, and too dear! 

Then sighs and tears flow fast and free, 

Though none is nigh to share; 
And life has nought beside for me 

So sweet as this despair. 

There are crush'd hearts that will not break; 

And mine, methinks, is one; 
Or thus I should not weep and wake, 

And thou to slumber gone. ,.. 



52 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

I little thought it thus could be 
In days more sad and fair — 

That earth could have a place for me, 
And thou no longer there. 

Yet death cannot our hearts divide, 
Or make thee less my own : 

'Twere sweeter sleeping at thy side 
Than watching here alone. 

Yet never, never can we part, 
While Memory holds her reign: 

Thine, thine is still this wither'd heart, 
Till we shall meet again. 

H. F, Lyte 

^ CCXXV 

LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER 

A Chieftain to the Highlands bound 
Cries 'Boatman, do not tarry! 
And I'll give thee a silver pound 
To row us o'er the ferry!' 

'Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, 
This dark and stormy water? ' 
'O I'm the chief of Ulva's isle, 
And this, Lord Ullin's daughter. 

'And fast before her father's men 
Three days we've fled together, 



BOOK FOURTH 53 

For should he find us in the glen, 
My blood would stain the heather. 

' His horsemen hard behind us ride — • 
Should they our steps discover, 
Then who will cheer my bonny bride, 
When they have slain her lover?' 

Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, 
'I'll go, my chief, I'm ready: 
It is not for your silver bright, 
But for your w^insome lady : — 

' And by my word ! the bonny bird 
In danger shall not tarry; 
So though the waves are raging white 
I'll row you o'er the ferry.' 

By this the storm grew loud apace, 
The water-wraith was shrieking; 
And in the scowl of Heaven each face 
Grew dark as they were speaking. 

But still as wilder blew the wind, 
And as the night grew drearer, 
Adown the glen rode armed men, 
Their trampling sounded nearer. 

'O haste thee, haste!' the lady cries, 
'Though tempests round us gather; 
I'll meet the raging of the skies, 
But not an angry father.' 



54 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The boat has left a stormy land, 

A stormy sea before her, — 

When, oh! too strong for human hand 

The tempest gather'd o'er her. 

And still they row'd amidst the roar 
Of waters fast prevailing: 
Lord Ullin reach'd that fatal shore, — 
His wrath was changed to waiHng. 

For, sore dismay'd, through storm and shade 
His child he did discover; — 
One lovely hand she stretch'd for aid, 
And one was round her lover. 

'Come back! come back!' he cried in grief 
* Across this stormy water : 
And I'll forgive your Highland chief. 
My daughter! — Oh, my daughter!' 

'Twas vain: the loud waves lash'd the shore, 

Return or aid preventing: 

The waters wild went o'er his child. 

And he was left lamenting. 



T. Campbell 



CCXXVI 

LUCY GRAY 

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray: 
And when I cross'd the wild, 



BOOK FOURTH 55 

I chanced to see at break of day 
The solitary child. 

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew; 
She dwelt on a wide moor, 
The sweetest thing that ever grew 
Beside a human door! 

You yet may spy the fawn at play, 
The hare upon the green; 
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray 
Will never more be seen. 

* To-night will be a stormy night — 
You to the town must go; 
And take a lantern, Child, to light 
Your mother through the snow/ 

'That, Father! will I gladly do: 
'Tis scarcely afternoon — 
The minster-clock has just struck two, 
And yonder is the moon ! ' 

At this the father raised his hook, 
And snapp'd a faggot-band; 
He pHed his work; — and Lucy took 
The lantern in her hand. 

Not blither is the mountain roe: 
With many a wanton stroke 
Her feet disperse the powdery snow, 
That rises up like smoke. 



56 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The storm came on before its time: 
She wander'd up and down; 
And many a hill did Lucy climb: 
But never reach'd the town. 

The wretched parents all that night 
Went shouting far and wide; 
But there was neither sound nor sight 
To serve them for a guide. 

At day-break on a hill they stood 
That overlook'd the moor; 
And thence they saw the bridge of wood 
A furlong from their door. 

They wept — and, turning homeward, cried 
* In heaven we all shall meet ! ' 
— When in the snow the mother spied 
The print of Lucy's feet. 

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge 
They track'd the footmarks small; 
And through the broken hawthorn hedge, 
And by the long stone-wall: 

And then an open field they cross'd: 
The marks were still the same; 
They track'd them on, nor ever lost; 
And to the bridge they came: 

They follow'd from the snowy bank 
Those footmarks, one by one, 



BOOK FOURTH 57 

Into the middle of the plank; 
And further there were none! 

— Yet some maintain that to this day- 
She is a Hving child; 
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray 
Upon the lonesome wild. 

O'er rough and smooth she trips along, 
And never looks behind; 
And sings a solitary song 
That w^histles in the wind. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXXVII 
JOCK OF HAZELDEAN 

* Why weep ye by the tide, ladie? 

Why weep ye by the tide? 
I'll wed ye to my youngest son, 

And ye sail be his bride: 
And ye sail be his bride, ladie, 

Sae comely to be seen ' — 
But aye she loot the tears doAvn faV 

For Jock of Hazeldean. 

'Now let this wilfu' grief be done, 
And dry that cheek so pale; >• 

Young Frank is chief of Errington 
And lord of Langley-dale; 

His step is first in peaceful ha^, 



58 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

His sword in battle keen ' — 
But aye she loot the tears do^vn fa* 
For Jock of Hazeldean. 

*A chain of gold ye sail not lack, 

Nor braid to bind your hair, 
Nor mettled hound, nor managed hawk, 

Nor palfrey fresh and fair; 
And you the foremost o' them a' 

Shall ride our forest-queen ' — 
But aye she loot the tears do^vn fa' 

For Jock of Hazeldean. 

The kirk was deck'd at morning-tide, 

The tapers glimmer'd fair; 
The priest and bridegroom wait the bride, 

And dame and knight are there: 
They sought her baith by bower and ha' ; 

The ladie was not seen! 
She's o'er the Border, and awa' 

Wi' Jock of Hazeldean. 

Sir W. Scott 

ccxxvni 

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY 

The fountains mingle with the river 
And the rivers with the ocean. 
The winds of heaven mix for ever 
With a sweet emotion; 
Nothing in the world is single, 



BOOK FOURTH 59 

All things by a law divine 

In one another's being mingle — 

Why not I with thine? 

See the mountains kiss high heaven, 
And the waves clasp one another; 
No sister-flower would be forgiven 
If it disdain'd its brother: 
And the sunlight clasps the earth, 
And the moonbeams kiss the sea — 
What are all these kissings worth, 
If thou kiss not me? 

P. B. Shelley 

CCXXIX 

ECHOES 

How sweet the answer Echo makes 
To Music at night 

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes, 
And far away o'er lawTis and lakes 
Goes answering light! 

Yet Love hath echoes truer far 

And far more sweet 

Then e'er, beneath the moonlight's star, 

Of horn or lute or soft guitar 

The songs repeat. 

'Tis when the sigh, — in youth sincere 
And only then, 



60 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The sigh that's breathed for one to hear — 
Is by that one, that only Dear 
Breathed back again. 

T. Mo&re 

CCXXX 

A SERENADE 

Ah! County Guy, the hour is nigh, 

The sun has left the lea. 
The orange-flower perfumes the bower, 

The breeze is on the sea. 
The lark, his lay who trill'd all day, 

Sits hush'd his partner nigh; 
Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, 

But where is County Guy? 

The village maid steals through the shade 

Her shepherd's suit to hear; 
To Beauty shy, by lattice high, 

Sings high-born Cavalier. 
The star of Love, all stars above, 

Now reigns o'er earth and sky. 
And high and low the influence know — 

But where is County Guy? 

Sir W. Scott 

CCXXXI 

TO THE EVENING STAR 

Gem of the crimson-colour'd Even, 
Companion of retiring day, 



BOOK FOURTH 61 

Why at the closing gates of heaven, 
Beloved Star, dost thou delay? 

So fair thy pensile beauty burns 
When soft the tear of twilight flows; 
So due thy plighted love returns 
To chambers brighter than the rose; 

To Peace, to Pleasure, and to Love 
So kind a star thou seem'st to be, 
Sure some enamour'd orb above 
Descends and burns to meet with thee. 

Thine is the breathing, blushing hour 
When all unheavenly passions fly, 
Chased by the soul-subduing power 
Of Love's dehcious witchery. 

O! sacred to the fall of day 
Queen of propitious stars, appear, 
And early rise, and long delay, 
When Caroline herself is here! 

Shine on her chosen green resort 
Whose trees the sunward summit crown, 
And wanton flowers, that well may court 
An angel's feet to tread them down: — 

Shine on her sweetly scented road 
Thou star of evening's purple dome, 
That lead'st the nightingale abroad, 
And guid'st the pilgrim to his home. 



62 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Shine where my charmer's sweeter breath 
Embalms the soft exhaUng dew, 
Where dying winds a sigh bequeath 
To kiss the cheek of rosy hue : — 

Where, winnow'd by the gentle air, 
Her silken tresses darkly flow 
And fall upon her brow so fair, 
Like shadows on the mountain snow. 

Thus, ever thus, at day's decline 
In converse sweet to wander far — 
O bring with thee my Caroline, 
And thou shalt be my Ruling Star! 

T. Campbell 

CCXXXII 

TO THE NIGHT 

Swiftly walk over the western wave, 

Spirit of Night! 
Out of the misty eastern cave 
Where, all the long and lone daylight, 
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear 
Which make thee terrible and dear, — • 
Swift be thy flight! 

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray 

Star-inwrought ; 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, 
Kiss her until she be wearied out ; 



BOOK FOURTH 63 

Then wander o'er city and sea and land, 
Touching all with thine opiate wand — 
Come, long-sought! 

When I arose and saw the dawn, 

I sigh'd for thee; 
When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, 
And the weary Day turn'd to his rest 
Lingering Hke an unloved guest, 

I sigh'd for thee. 

Thy brother Death came, and cried 

Wouldst thou me? 
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 
Murmur'd like a noon-tide bee 
Shall I nestle near thy side? 
Wouldst thou me? — And I replied 

No, not thee! 

Death will come when thou art dead, 

Soon, too soon — 
Sleep will come when thou art fled; 
Of neither would I ask the boon 
I ask of thee, beloved Night — 
Swift be thine approaching flight. 

Come soon, soon! 

P. B. Shelley 



64- THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXXXIII 

TO A DISTANT FRIEND 

Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant 
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air 
Of absence withers what was once so fair? 
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? 

Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, 
Bound to thy service with unceasing care — 
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant 
For nought but what thy happiness could spare. 

Speak ! — though this soft warm heart, once free to 

hold 
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine. 
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold 

Than a forsaken bird's-nest fill'd with snow 
■*Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine — 
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXXXIV 

When we two parted 

In silence and tears, 

Half broken-hearted, 

To sever for years, 

Pale grew thy cheek and cold, 

Colder thy kiss; 



BOOK FOURTH 65 

Truly that hour foretold 
Sorrow to this! 



The dew of the morning 
Sunk chill on my brow; 
It felt like the warning 
Of what I feel now. 
Thy vows are all broken, 
And light is thy fame: 
I hear thy name spoken 
And share in its shame. 

They name thee before me, 
A knell to mine ear; 
A shudder comes o'er me — 
Why wert thou so dear? 
They know not I knew thee 
Who knew thee too well: 
Long, long shall I rue thee. 
Too deeply to tell. 

In secret we met: 

In silence I grieve 

That thy heart could forget, 

Thy spirit deceive. 

If I should meet thee 

After long years, 

How should I greet thee? — 

With silence and tears. 

Lord Byron 



66 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

ccxxxv 

HAPPY INSENSIBILITY 

In a drear-nighted December, 

Too happy, happy tree. 

Thy branches ne'er remember 

Their green felicity: 

The north cannot undo them 

With a sleety whistle through them, 

Nor frozen thawings glue them 

From budding at the prime. 

In a drear-nighted December, 
Too happy, happy brook, 
Thy bubblings ne'er remember 
Apollo's summer look; 
But with a sweet forgetting 
They stay their crystal fretting, 
Never, never petting 
About the frozen time. 

Ah! would 'twere so with many 
A gentle girl and boy! 
But were there ever any 
Writhed not at passed joy? 
To know the change and feel it. 
When there is none to heal it 
Nor numbed sense to steal it — 
Was never said in rhyme. 

J. Keats 



BOOK FOURTH 67 

CCXXXVI 

Where shall the lover rest 

Whom the fates sever 
From his true maiden's breast 

Parted for ever? 
Where, through groves deep and high 

Sounds the far billow, 
Where early violets die 

Under the ^villow. 
Eleu loro 

Soft shall be his pillow. 

There through the summer day 

Cool streams are laving: 
There, while the tempests sway, 

Scarce are boughs waving; 
There thy rest shalt thou take, 

Parted for ever, 
Never again to wake 

Never, O never! 
Eleu loro 

Never, 7iever! 

Where shall the traitor rest. 

He, the deceiver. 
Who could win maiden's breast, 

Ruin, and leave her? 
In the lost battle, 

Borne down by the flying, 
Where mingles war's rattle 



68 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

With groans of the dymg; 

Eleu low 
There shall he be lying. 

Her wing shall the eagle flap 

O'er the falsehearted; 
His warm blood the wolf shall lap 

Ere life be parted: 
Shame and dishonour sit 

By his grave ever; 
Blessing shall hallow it 

Never, O never! 
Eleu loro 

Never, never! 

Sir W. Scott 

CCXXXVII 
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 

*0 WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 
Alone and palely loitering? 

The sedge has wither' d from the lake, 
And no birds sing. 

'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 

So haggard and so woe-begone? 
The squirrel's granary is full, 

And the harvest's done. 

* I see a lily on thy brow 

With anguish moist and fever-dew, 



BOOK FOURTH 69 

And on thy cheeks a fading rose 
Fast withereth too.' 

' I met a lady in the meads, 

Full beautiful — a faery's child, 
Her hair was long, her foot was light, 

And her eyes were wild. 

* I made a garland for her head. 

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; 
She look'd at me as she did love, 
And made sweet moan. 

* I set her on my pacing steed 

And nothing else saw all day long. 
For sidelong would she bend, and sing 
A faery's song. 

'She found me roots of relish sweet. 

And honey wild and manna-dew. 
And sure in language strange she said 

'^I love thee true." 

*She took me to her elfin grot, 

And there she wept and sigh'd full sore; 

And there I shut her wild wild eyes 
With kisses four. 

*And there she lulled me asleep. 

And there I dream'd — Ah! woe betide! 

The latest dream I ever dream'd 
On the cold hill's side. 



70 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

* I saw pale kings and princes too, 

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all: 
They cried — "La belle Dame sans Merci 
Hath thee in thrall!" 

* I saw their starved lips in the gloam 

With horrid warning gaped wide, 
And I awoke and found me here 
On the cold hill's side. 

'And this is why I sojourn here 

Alone and palely loitering, 
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, 

And no birds sing.' 

J. Keats 

CCXXXVIII 
THE ROVER 

A WEARY lot is thine, fair maid, 

A weary lot is thine ! 
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, 

And press the rue for wine. 
A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, 

A feather of the blue, 
A doublet of the Lincoln green — 

No more of me you knew 
My Love! 
No more of me you knew. 

'This morn is merry June, I trow, 
The rose is budding fain; 



BOOK FOURTH 71 

But she shall bloom in winter snow 

Ere we two meet again.' 
He turn'd his charger as he spake 

Upon the river shore, 
He gave the briclle-reins a shake, 
Said 'Adieu for evermore 
My Love! 
And adieu for evermore.' 

Sir W, Scott 



CCXXXIX 

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE 

When the lamp is shatter'd 
The light in the dust lies dead — 
When the cloud is scatter'd, 
The rainbow's glory is shed. 
When the lute is broken, 
Sweet tones are remember 'd not; 
When the lips have spoken, 
Loved accents are soon forgot. 

As music and splendour 

Survive not the lamp and the lute, 

The heart's echoes render 

No song when the spirit is mute — 

No song but sad dirges, 

Like the wind through a ruin'd cell, 

Or the mournful surges 

That ring the dead seaman's knell. 



72 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

When hearts have once mingled, 

Love first leaves the well-built nest; 

The weak one is singled 

To endure what it once possesst. 

O Love! who bewailest 

The frailty of all things here, 

Why choose you the frailest 

For your cradle, your home, and your bier? 

Its passions will rock thee 

As the storms rock the ravens on high; 

Bright reason will mock thee 

Like the sun from a wintry sky. 

From thy nest every rafter 

Will rot, and thine eagle home 

Leave thee naked to laughter. 

When leaves fall and cold winds come. 

P. B. Shelley 



CCXL 
THE MAID OF NEIDPATH 

O lovers' eyes are sharp to see, 

And lovers' ears in hearing; 
And love, in life's extremity. 

Can lend an hour of cheering. 
Disease had been in Mary's bower 

And slow decay from mourning. 
Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower 

To watch her Love's returning. 



BOOK FOURTH 73 

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, 

Her form decay'd by pining, 
Till through her wasted hand, at night, 

You saw the taj^er shining. 
By fits a sultry hectic hue 

Across her cheek was flying; 
By fits so ashy pale she grew 

Her maidens thought her dying. 

Yet keenest powers to see and hear 

Seem'd in her frame residing; 
Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear 

She heard her lover's riding; 
Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd 

She knew and waved to greet him, 
And o'er the battlement did bend 

As on the wing to meet him. 

He came — he pass'd — an heedless gaze 

As o'er some stranger glancing; 
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase. 

Lost in his courser's prancing — 
The castle-arch, whose hollow tone 

Returns each whisper spoken, 
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan 

Which told her heart was broken. 

Sir W. Scoti 

CCXLI 

Earl March look'd on his dying child, 
And, smit with grief to view her — 



74 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The youth, he cried, whom I exiled 
Shall be restored to woo her. 

She's at the window many an hour 

His coming to discover: 
And he look'd up to Ellen's bower 

And she look'd on her lover — 

But ah ! so pale, he knew her not, 

Though her smile on him was dwelling — 

And am I then forgot — forgot? 
It broke the heart of Ellen. 

In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs, 

Her cheek is cold as ashes; 
Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes 

To lift their silken lashes. 

T. Campbell 

CCXLII 

Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art 
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, 
And watching, with eternal lids apart, 
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, 

The moving waters at their priestlike task 
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, 
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask 
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors : — 

No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, 
Pillow 'd upon my fair Love's ripening breast 



BOOK FOURTH 75 

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, 
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest; 

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, 
And so live ever, — or else swoon to death. 

J. Keats 

CCXLIII 

THE TERROR OF DEATH 

When I have fears that I may cease to be 
Before my pen has glean' d my teeming brain. 
Before high-piled books, in charact'ry 
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; 

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, 
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, 
And think that I may never live to trace 
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; 

And when I feel, fair Creature of an hour! 
That I shall never look upon thee more. 
Never have relish in the faery power 
Of unreflecting love — then on the shore 

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think 
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. 

J. Keats 



76 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXLIV 

DESIDERIA 

Surprized by joy — impatient as the wind — 
I turn'd to share the transport — Oh ! with whom 
But Thee — deep buried in the silent tomb, 
That spot which no vicissitude can find? 

Love, faithful love recalled thee to my mind — 
But how could I forget thee? Through what power 
Even for the least division of an hour 
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 

To my most grievous loss! — That thought's return 
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore 
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn. 

Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; 
That neither present time, nor years unborn 
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXLV 

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly 
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in 

thine eye; 
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions 

of air 
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to 

me there 
And tell me our love is remember'd, even in the sky ! 



BOOK FOURTH 77 

Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear 
When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on 

the ear; 
And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls, 
I think, oh my Love! 'tis thy voice, from the King- 
dom of Souls 
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so 
dear. 

T. Moore 
CCXLVI 

ELEGY ON THYRZA 

And thou art dead, as young and fair 

As aught of mortal birth; 
And forms so soft and charms so rare 

Too soon return'd to Earth! 
Though Earth received them in her bed, 
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread 

In carelessness or mirth. 
There is an eye which could not brook 
A moment on that grave to look. 

I will not ask where thou liest low 

Nor gaze upon the spot; 
There flowers or w^eds at will may grow 

So I behold them not: 
It is enough for me to prove 
That what I loved, and long must love, 

Like common earth can rot; 
To me there needs no stone to tell 
Tis Nothing that I loved so well, ' y'^'^ 



78 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Yet did I love thee to the last, 

As fervently as thou 
Who didst not change through all the past 

And canst not alter now. 
The love where Death has set his seal 
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, 

Nor falsehood disavow: 
And, what were worse, thou canst not see 
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. 

The better days of life were ours; 

The worst can be but mine: 
The sun that cheers, the storm that lours, 

Shall never more be thine. 
The silence of that dreamless sleep 
I envy now too much to weep; 

Nor need I to repine 
That all those charms have pass'd away 
I might have watch'd through long decay. 

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd 

Must fall the earliest prey; 
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd, 

The leaves must drop away. 
And yet it were a greater grief 
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf, 

Than see it pluck'd today; 
Since earthly eye but ill can bear 
To trace the change to foul from fair. 

I know not if I could have borne 
To see thy beauties fade; 



BOOK FOURTH 79 

The night that foUow'd such a mom 

Had worn a deeper shade: 
Thy day without a cloud hath past, 
And thou wert lovely to the last, 

Extinguish'd, not decay'd; 
As stars that shoot along the sky 
Shine brightest as they fall from high. 

As once I wept, if I could weep. 

My tears might well be shed 
To think I was not near, to keep 

One vigil o'er thy bed: 
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, 
To fold thee in a faint embrace. 

Uphold thy drooping head; 
And show that love, however vain. 
Nor thou nor I can^feel again. 

Yet how much less it were to gain. 

Though thou hast left me free. 
The loveliest things that still remain 

Than thus remember thee! 
The all of thine that cannot die 
Through dark and dread Eternity 

Returns again to me, 
And more thy buried love endears 
Than aught except its living years. 

Lord Byron / 



80 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXLVII 

One word is too often profaned 

For me to profane it, 
One feeling too falsely disdain'd 

For thee to disdain it. 
One hope is too like despair 

For prudence to smother, 
And pity from thee more dear 

Than that from another. 

I can give not what men call love; 

But wilt thou accept not 
The worship the heart lifts above 

And the Heavens reject not: 
The desire of the moth for the star, 

Of the night for the morrow, 
The devotion to something afar 

From the sphere of our sorrow? 

P. B. Shelley 

CCXLVIII 

GATHERING SONG OF DONALD THE 
BLACK 

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu 

Pibroch of Donuil 
Wake thy wild voice anew, 

Summon Clan Conuil. 
Come away, come away, 

Hark to the summons! 



BOOK FOURTH 81 

Come in your war-array, 
Gentles and commons. 

Come from deep glen, and 

From mountain so rocky; 
The war-pipe and pennon 

Are at Inverlocky. 
Come every hill-plaid, and 

True heart that wears one. 
Come every steel blade, and 

Strong hand that bears one. 

Leave untended the herd, 

The flock without shelter; 
Leave the corpse uninterr'd. 

The bride at the altar; 
Leave the deer, leave the steer. 

Leave nets and barges: 
Come with your fighting gear, 

Broadswords and targes. 

Come as the winds come, when 

Forests are rended. 
Come as the waves come, when 

Navies are stranded: 
Faster come, faster come. 

Faster and faster, 
Chief, vassal, page and groom, 

Tenant and master. 

Fast they come, fast they come; 
See how they gather! 



82 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Wide waves the eagle plume 

Blended with heather. 
Cast your plaids, draw your blades, 

Forward each man set! 
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu 

Knell for the onset! 

Sir W. Scott 



CCXLIX 

A WET sheet and a flowing sea, 

I A wind that follows fast 

And fills the white and rustling sail 

And bends the gallant mast; 
And bends the gallant mast, my boys. 

While like the eagle free 
Away the good ship flies, and leaves 

Old England on the lee. 

O for a soft and gentle wind! 

I heard a fair one cry; 
But give to me the snoring breeze 

And white waves heaving high ; 
And white waves heaving high, my lads, 

The good ship tight and free — 
The world of waters is our home, 

And merry men are we. 

There's tempest in yon horned moon, 

And lightning in yon cloud; 
But hark the music, mariners! 



BOOK FOURTH 83 

The wind is piping loud; 
The wind is piping loud, my boys, 

The lightning flashes free — 
While the hollow oak our palace is, 

Our heritage the sea. 

A. Cunningham 



CCL 

Ye Mariners of England 

That guard our native seas! 

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 

The battle and the breeze! 

Your glorious standard launch again 

To match another foe: 

And sweep through the deep, 

While the stormy winds do blow ; 

While the battle rages loud and long 

And the stormy winds do blow. 

The spirits of your fathers 

Shall start from every wave — 

For the deck it was their field of fame, 

And Ocean was their grave : 

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell 

Your manly hearts shall glow. 

As ye sweep through the deep. 

While the stormy winds do blow; 

While the battle rages loud and long 

And the stormy winds do blow. 



84 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Britannia needs no bulwarks, 

No towers along the steep; 

Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, 

Her home is on the deep. 

With thunders from her native oak 

She quells the floods below — 

As they roar on the shore, 

When the stormy winds do blow; 

When the battle rages loud and long, 

And the stormy winds do blow. 

The meteor flag of England 

Shall yet terrific burn; 

Till danger's troubled night depart 

And the star of peace return. 

Then, then, ye ocean-warriors! 

Our song and feast shall flow 

To the fame of your name, 

When the storm has ceased to blow; 

When the fiery fight is heard no more, 

And the storm has ceased to blow. 

T. Campbell 

CCLI 

BATTLE OF THE BALTIC 

Of Nelson and the North 

Sing the glorious day's renown. 

When to battle fierce came forth 

All the might of Denmark's crown, 

And her arms along the deep proudly shone; 



BOOK FOURTH 85 

By each gun the lighted brand 
In a bold determined hand, 
And the Prince of all the land 
Led them on. 

Like leviathans afloat 

Lay their bulwarks on the brine; 

While the sign of battle flew 

On the lofty British line : 

It was ten of April morn by the chime: 

As they drifted on their path 

There was silence deep as death; 

And the boldest held his breath 

For a time. 

But the might of England flush'd 

To anticipate the scene; 

And her van the fleeter rush'd 

O'er the deadly space between. 

'Hearts of oak!' our captains cried, when each gun 

From its adamantine lips 

Spread a death-shade round the ships, 

Like the hurricane eclipse 

Of the sun. 

Again! again! again! 

And the havoc did not slack, 

Till a feeble cheer the Dane 

To our cheering sent us back ; — 

Their shots along the deep slowly boom: — 

Then ceased — and all is wail, 



86 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

As they strike the shatter'd sail; 
Or in conflagration pale 
Light the gloom. 

Out spoke the victor then 

As he hail'd them o'er the wave, 

*Ye are brothers! ye are men! 

And we conquer but to save: — 

So peace instead of death let us bring: 

But yield, proud foe, thy fleet 

With the crews, at England's feet, 

And make submission meet 

To our King.' 

Then Denmark bless'd our chief 

That he gave her wounds repose; 

And the sounds of joy and grief 

From her people wildly rose, 

As death withdrew his shades from the day; 

While the sun look'd smiling bright 

O'er a wide and woeful sight. 

Where the fires of funeral light 

Died away. 

Now joy, old England, raise! 

For the tidings of thy might, 

By the festal cities' blaze, 

Whilst the wine-cup shines in light; 

And yet amidst that joy and uproar, 

Let us think of them that sleep 

Full many a fathom deep 



BOOK FOURTH 87 

By thy wild and stormy steep, 
Elsinore! 

Brave hearts! to Britain's pride 

Once so faithful and so true, 

On the deck of fame that died, 

With the gallant good Riou: 

Soft sigh the winds of Heaven o'er their grave! 

While the billow mournful rolls 

And the mermaid's song condoles 

Singing glory to the souls 

Of the brave! 

T. Campbell 

CCLII 

ODE TO DUTY 

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God! 
O Duty! if that name thou love 
Who art a light to guide, a rod 
To check the erring, and reprove; 
Thou who art victory and law 
When empty terrors overawe; 
From vain temptations dost set free. 
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! 

There are who ask not if thine eye 
Be on them ; who, in love and truth 
Where no misgiving is, rely 
Upon the genial sense of youth: 
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot, 



88 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Who do thy work, and know it not: 
Oh! if through confidence misplaced 
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them 
cast. 

Serene will be our days and bright 
And happy will our nature be 
When love is an unerring light, 
And joy its own security. 
And they a blissful course may hold 
Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold, 
Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need. 

I, loving freedom, and untried, 
No sport of every random gust. 
Yet being to myself a guide. 
Too blindly have reposed my trust: 
And oft, when in my heart was heard 
Thy timely mandate, I deferr'd 
The task, in smoother walks to stray; 
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. 

Through no disturbance of my soul 
Or strong compunction in me wrought, 
I supplicate for thy controul. 
But in the quietness of thought: 
Me this uncharter'd freedom tires; 
I feel the weight of chance-desires: 
My hopes no more must change their name;' 
I long for a repose that ever is the same. 



BOOK FOURTH 89 

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace; 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face: 
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing treads; 
Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong; 
And the most ancient Heavens, through Thee, are fresh 
and strong. 

To humbler functions, awful Power! 
I call thee: I myself commend 
Unto thy guidance from this hour; 
Oh let my weakness have an end! 
Give unto me, made low4y wise, 
The spirit of self-sacrifice; 
The confidence of reason give; 
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLIII 

ON THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind ! 
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art. 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which love of Thee alone can bind; 

And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd- 
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Their country conquers with their martyrdom. 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 



90 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Chillon! thy prison is a holy place 

And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod, 

Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 
By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God. 

Lord Byron 

CCLIV 

ENGLAND AND SWITZERLAND, 1802 

Two Voices are there; one is of the Sea, 
One of the Mountains; each a mighty voice: 
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, 
They were thy chosen music, Liberty! 

There came a tyrant, and with holy glee 
Thou fought'st against him, — but hast vainly striven: 
Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, 
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. 

— Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft ; 
Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left — 
For, high-soul'd Maid, what sorrow would it be 

That Mountain floods should thunder as before, 
And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore. 
And neither awful Voice be heard by Thee! 

W' Wordsworth 



BOOK FOURTH 91 

CCLV 

ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN 
REPUBLIC 

Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee 
And was the safeguard of the West; the worth 
Of Venice did not fall below her birth, 
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty. 

She was a maiden city, bright and free; 
No guile seduced, no force could violate; 
And when she took unto herself a mate, 
She must espouse the everlasting Sea. 

And what if she had seen those glories fade. 
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay, — 
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid 

When her long life hath reach'd its final day: 
Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade 
Of that which once was great is pass'd away. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLVI 

LONDON, 1802 

O Friend! I know not which way I must look 

For comfort, being, as I am, opprest 

To think that now our life is only drest 

For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, 



92 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Or groom! — We must run glittering like a brook 
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest; 
The wealthiest man among us is the best: 
No grandeur now in nature or in book 

Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, 
This is idolatry; and these we adore: 
Plain living and high thinking are no more: 

The homely beauty of the good old cause 
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, 
And pure religion breathing household laws. 

W. Wordsworth 



CCLVII 

THE SAME 

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: 
England hath need of thee: she is a fen 
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, 
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 

Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men: 
Oh! raise us up, return to us again; 
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free; 



BOOK FOURTH 93 

So didst thou travel on life's common way 
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLVIII 

When I have borne in memory what has tamed 
Great nations; how ennobling thoughts depart 
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert 
The student's bower for gold, — some fears unnamed 

I had, my Country! — am I to be blamed? 
Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art, 
Verily, in the bottom of my heart 
Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. 

For dearly must we prize thee; we who find 
In thee a bulwark for the cause of men; 
And I by my affection was beguiled: 

What wonder if a Poet now and then, 
Among the many movements of his mind, 
Felt for thee as a lover or a child ! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLIX 

HOHENLINDEN 

On Linden, when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow; 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 



94 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

But Linden saw another sight, 
When the drum beat at dead of night 
Commanding fires of death to Ught 
The darkness of her scenery. 

By torch and trumpet fast array'd 
Each horseman drew his battle-blade, 
And furious every charger neigh'd 
To join the dreadful revelry. 

Then shook the hills with thunder riven; 
Then rush'd the steed, to battle driven; 
And louder than the bolts of Heaven 
Far flash'd the red artillery. 

But redder yet that light shall glow 
On Linden's hills of stained snow; 
And bloodier yet the torrent flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

'Tis morn; but scarce yon level sun 
Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun, 
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun 
Shout in their sulphurous canopy. 

The combat deepens. On, ye Brave 
Who rush to glory, or the grave! 
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, 
And charge with all thy chivalry! 

Few, few shall part, where many meet! 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 



BOOK FOURTH 95 

And every turf beneath their feet 
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 

T. Campbell 

CCLX 
AFTER BLENHEIM 

It was a summer evening, 

Old Kaspar's work was done, 
And he before his cottage door 

Was sitting in the sun; 
And by him sported on the green 
His little grandchild Wilhelmine. 

She saw her brother Peterkin 

Roll something large and round 
Which he beside the rivulet 

In playing there had found ; 
He came to ask what he had found 
That was so large and smooth and round. 

Old Kaspar took it from the boy 

Who stood expectant by; 
And then the old man shook his head, 

And with a natural sigh 
*'Tis some poor fellow's skull,' said he, 
^Who fell in the great victory. 

^I find them in the garden, 

For there's many here about; 
And often when I go to plough 



98 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The ploughshare turns them out. 
For many thousand men/ said he, 
' Were slain in that great victory/ 

'Now tell us what 'twas all about/ 

Young Peterkin he cries; 
And little Wilhelmine looks up 

With wonder-waiting eyes; 
'Now tell us all about the war, 
And what they fought each other for/ 

'It was the Enghsh/ Kaspar cried, 
'Who put the French to rout; 

But what they fought each other for 
I could not well make out. 

But everybody said/ quoth he, 

'That 'twas a famous victory/ 

*My father lived at Blenheim then, 
Yon little stream hard by; 

They burnt his dwelling to the ground, 
And he was forced to fly: 

So with his wife and child he fled, 

Nor had he where to rest his head. 

*With fire and sword the country round 

Was wasted far and wide 
And many a childing mother then 

And newborn baby died: 
But things like that, you know, must be 
At every famous victory. 



BOOK FOURTH 97 

'They say it was a shocking sight 

After the field was won; 
For many thousand bodies here 

Lay rotting in the sun : 
But things hke that, you know, must be 
After a famous victory. 

'Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won 

And our good Prince Eugene;' 
'Why 'twas a very wicked thing!' 

Said httle Wilhelmine; 
'Nay . . nay . . my httle girl,' quoth he, 
'It was a famous victory. 

'And everybody praised the Duke 

Who this great fight did win.' 
'But what good came of it at last? ' 

Quoth little Peterkin: — 
'Why that I cannot tell,' said he, 
'But 'twas a famous victory.' 

R. Southey 

CCLXI 
PRO PATRIA MORI 

When he who adores thee has left but the name 

Of his fault and his sorrows behind, 
Oh! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame 

Of a life that for thee was resign'd! 
Yes, weep, and however my foes may condenm, 

Thy tears shall efface their decree: 



5 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

For, Heaven can witness, though guilty to them, 
I have been but too faithful to thee. 

With thee were the dreams of my earliest love; 

Every thought of my reason was thine : 
In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above 

Thy name shall be mingled with mine ! 
Oh ! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live 

The days of thy glory to see; 
But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give 

Is the pride of thus dying for thee. 

T. Moore 

CCLXII 

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE 
AT CORUNNA 

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried; 

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 
O'er the grave where our hero we buried. 

We buried him darkly at dead of night, 
The sods wdth our bayonets turning; 

By the struggling moonbeam's misty light 
And the lantern dimly burning. 

No useless coffin enclosed his breast. 

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; 

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, 
With his martial cloak around him. 



BOOK FOURTH 99 

Few and short were the prayers we said, 

And we spoke not a word of sorrow; 
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, 

And we bitterly thought of the morrow. 

We thought, as we hoUow'd his narrow bed 

And smoothed down his lonely pillow, 
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his 
head. 

And we far away on the billow! 

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone 
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him, — 

But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on 
In the grave where a Briton has laid him. 

But half of our heavy task was done 

When the clock struck the hour for retiring: 

And we heard the distant and random gun 
That the foe was sullenly firing. 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; 

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, 
But we left him alone with his glory. 

C. Wolfe 



100 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCLXIII 

SIMON LEE THE OLD HUNTSMAN 

In the sweet shire of Cardigan, 
Not far from jDleasant Ivor Hail, 
An old man dwells, a little man, — 
'Tis said he once was tall. 
Full five-and-thirty years he lived 
A rmming hmitsman merry; 
And still the centre of his cheek 
Is red as a ripe cherry. 

No man like him the horn could sound, 

And hill and valle}^ rang with glee, 

When Echo bandied, round and round, 

The halloo of Simon Lee. 

In those proud days he little cared 

For husbandry or tillage; 

To blither tasks did Simon rouse 

The sleepers of the village. 

He all the country could outrun. 

Could leave both man and horse behind; 

And often, ere the chase was done 

He reel'd and was stone-blind. 

And still there's something in the world 

At which his heart rejoices; 

For when the chiming hounds are out, 

He dearly loves their voices. 

But oh the heavy change ! — bereft 

Of health, strength, friends and kindred, see! 



BOOK FOURTH 101 

Old Simon to the world is left 

In liveried poverty : — 

His master's dead, and no one now 

Dwells in the Hall of Ivor; 

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead; 

He is the sole survivor. 

And he is lean and he is sick. 

His body, dwindled and awry, 

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; 

His legs are thin and dry. 

One prop he has, and only one, — 

His wife, an aged woman. 

Lives with him, near the waterfall, 

Upon the village common. 

Beside their moss-grow^n hut of clay, 
Not twenty paces from the door, 
A scrap of land they have, but they 
Are poorest of the poor. 
This scrap of land he from the heath 
Enclosed when he was stronger; 
But what to them avails the land 
Which he can till no longer? 

Oft, working by her husband's side, 
Ruth does what Simon cannot do; 
For she, with scanty cause for pride, 
Is stouter of the two. 
And, though you with your utmost skill 
From labour could not wean them, 



102 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

'Tis little, very little, all 

That they can do between them. 

Few months of life has he in store 
As he to you will tell. 
For still, the more he works, the more 
Do his weak ankles swell. 
My gentle Reader, I perceive 
How patiently you've waited, 
And now I fear that you expect 
Some tale will be related. 

O Reader! had you in your mind 

Such stores as silent thought can bring, 

O gentle Reader! you would find 

A tale in every thing. 

What more I have to say is short, 

And you must kindly take it : 

It is no tale; but, should you think, 

Perhaps a tale you'll make it. 

One summer-day I chanced to see 
This old Man doing all he could 
To unearth the root of an old tree, 
A stump of rotten wood. 
The mattock totter'd in his hand; 
So vain was his endeavour 
That at the root of the old tree 
He might have work'd for ever. 

* You're overtask'd, good Simon Lee, 
Give me your tgol/ to him I said; 



BOOK FOURTH 103 

And at the word right gladly he 

Received my proffer'd aid. 

I struck, and with a single blow 

The tangled root I sever'd, 

At which the poor old man so long 

And vainly had endeavour'd. 

The tears into his eyes were brought, 
And thanks and praises seem'd to run 
So fast out of his heart, I thought 
They never would have done. 
— I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deed 
With coldness still returning; 
Alas! the gratitude of men 
Hath oftener left me mourning. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLXIV 

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES 

I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, 

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days: 

All, all are gone, the old famihar faces. 

I have been laughing, I have been carousing. 
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies; 
All, all are gone, the old famihar faces. 

I loved a Love once, fairest among women: 
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her — 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 



104 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man: 
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly; 
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces. 

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood, 
Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, 
Seeking to find the old familiar faces. 

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, 
Why wert not thou born in my father's dweUing? 
So might we talk of the old familiar faces, 

How some they have died, and some they have left me, 
And some are taken from me; all are departed; 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 

C. Lamb 

CCLXV 
THE JOURNEY ONWARDS 

As slow our ship her foamy track 

Against the wind was cleaving, 
Her trembling pennant still look'd back 

To that dear isle 'twas leaving. 
So loth we part from all we love. 

From all the links that bind us; 
So turn our hearts, as on we rove, 

To those we've left behind us! 

When, round the bowl, of vanish'd years 
We talk with joyous seeming — 



BOOK FOURTH 105 

With smiles that might as well be tears, 

So faint, so sad their beaming; 
While memory brings us back again 

Each early tie that twined us, 
Oh, sweet's the cup that circles then 

To those we've left behind us! 

And when, in other climes, we meet 

Some isle or vale enchanting, 
Where all looks flowery, wild, and swTet, 

And nought but love is wanting; 
We think how great had been our bliss 

If Heaven had but assign'd us 
To live and die in scenes like this, 

With some we've left behind us! 

As travellers oft look back at eve 

When eastward darkl}^ going. 
To gaze upon that light they leave 

Still faint behind them glowing, — 
So, when the close of pleasure's day 

To gloom hath near consign'd us, 
We turn to catch one fading ray 

Of joy that's left behind us. 

T. Moore 



106 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCLXVI 
YOUTH AND AGE 

There's not a joy the world can give like that it 

takes away 
When the glow of early thought declines in feeUng's 

dull decay; 
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, 

which fades so fast, 
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth 

itself be past. 

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of 

happiness 
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess: 
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in 

vain 
The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never 

stretch again. 

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself 

comes down; 
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its 

own; 
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our 

tears. 
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis whefe the 

ice appears. 

Though wit niay flash from fluent lips, and mirth 
distract the breast. 



BOOK^ FOURTH 107 

Through midnight hours that yield no more their 

former hope of rest; 
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe, 
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and 

gray beneath. 

Oh could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been, 
Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanished 

scene, — 
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish 

though they be, 
So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would 
flow to me! 

Lord Byron 
CCLXVII 

A LESSON 

There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, 
That shrinks like many more from cold and rain, 
And the first moment that the sun may shine, 
Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again! 

When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, 
Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest, 
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm 
In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest. 

But lately, one rough day, this Flower I past, 
And recognized it, though an alter'd form. 
Now standing forth an offering to the blast, 
And buffeted at will by rain and storm. 



103 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

I stopp'd and said, with inly-mutter'd voice, 
'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold; 
This neither is its courage nor its choice, 
But its necessity in being old. 

'The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew; 
It cannot help itself in its decay; 
Stiff in its members, wither'd, changed of hue,' — 
And, in mj^ spleen, I smiled that it was gray. 

To be a prodigal's favourite — then, worse truth, 
A miser's pensioner — behold our lot! 
O Man! that from thy fair and shining youth 
Age might but take the things Youth needed not! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLXVIII 

PAST AND PRESENT 

I REMEMBER, I remember 
The house where I was born. 
The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn; 
He never came a wink too soon 
Nor brought too long a day; 
But now, I often w^ish the night 
Had borne my breath away. 

I remember, I remember 
The roses, red and white. 
The violets, and the lily-cups — = 



BOOK FOURTH 109 

Those flowers made of light! 
The Hlacs where the robin built, 
And where my brother set 
The laburnum on his birth-day, — 
The tree is living yet! 

I remember, I remember 

Where I was used to swing, 

And thought the air must rush as fresh 

To swallows on the wing; 

My spirit flew in feathers then 

That is so heavy now. 

And summer pools could hardly cool 

The fever on my brow. 

I remember, I remember 

The fir trees dark and high; 

I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky: 

Itj0^as_.8L.childish ig^norance. 

But now 'tis httle joy 

To know I'm farther off from Heaven 

Than when I was a boy. 

T. Hood 

CCLXIX 

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 

Oft in the stilly night 

Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
Fond Memory brings the li^ht 



110 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Of other days around me : 

The smiles, the tears 

Of boyhood's years, 
The words of love then spoken; 

The eyes that shone, 

Now dimm'd and gone. 
The cheerful hearts now broken! 
Thus in the stilly night 

Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 

When I remember all 

The friends so link'd together 
I've seen around me fall 

Like leaves in wintry weather, 
I feel like one 
Who treads alone 
Some banquet-hall deserted. 
Whose lights are fled 
Whose garlands dead, 
And all but he departed! 
Thus in the stilly night 

Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 

T. Moore 



BOOK FOURTH 111 

CCLXX 

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR 
NAPLES 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear, 
The waves are dancing fast and bright, 
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 
The purple noon's transparent might: 
The breath of the moist earth is light 
Around its unexpanded buds; 
Like many a voice of one delight — 
The winds', the birds', the ocean-floods^ — 
The city's voice itself is soft like Sohtude's. 

I see the deep's untrampled floor 
With green and purple sea-weeds strown; 
I see the waves upon the shore 
Like hght dissolved in star-showers thrown: 
I sit upon the sands alone; 
The lightning of the noon-tide ocean 
Is flashing round me, and a tone 
Arises from its measured motion — 
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. 

Alas! I have nor hope nor health, 

Nor peace within nor calm around, 

Nor that content, surpassing wealth, 

The sage in meditation found. 

And walk'd with inward glory crown'd — 

Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure; 



112 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Others I see whom these surround — 
SmiHng they hve, and call life pleasure; 
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 

Yet now despair itself is mild 
Even as the winds and waters are; 
I could lie down like a tired child, 
And weep away the life of care 
Which I have borne, and 3^et must bear, — 
Till death like sleep might steal on me. 
And I might feel in the warm air 
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 

P. B. Shelley 

CCLXXI 

THE SCHOLAR 

My days among the Dead are past; 

Around me I behold, 

Where'er these casual eyes are cast, 

The mighty minds of old : 

My never-failing friends are they. 

With whom I converse day by day. 

With them I take delight in weal 

And seek relief in woe; 

And while I understand and feel 

How much to them I owe. 

My cheeks have often been bedew'd 

With tears of thoughtful gratitude. 



BOOK FOURTH 113 

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them 

I Uve in long-past years, 

Their virtues love, their faults condemn, 

Partake their hopes and fears. 

And from their lessons seek and find 

Instruction with an humble mind. 

My hopes are with the Dead; anon 
My place with them will be, 
And I with them shall travel on 
Through all Futurity; 
Yet leaving here a name, I trust, 
That will not perish in the dust. 

R. Southey 



CCLXXII 

THE MERMAID TAVERN 

Souls of Poets dead and gone, 
What Elysium have ye known, 
Happy field or mossy cavern. 
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? 
Have ye tippled drink more fine 
Than mine host's Canary wine? 
Or are fruits of Paradise 
Sweeter than those dainty pies 
Of venison? O generous food! 
Drest as though bold Robin Hood 
Would, with his Maid Marian, 
Sup and bowse from horn and can. 



114 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

I have heard that on a day 
Mine host's sign-board flew away 
Nobody knew whither, till 
An astrologer's old quill 
To a sheepskin gave the story, 
Said he saw you in your glory, 
Underneath a new-old sign 
Sipping beverage divine, 
And pledging with contented smack 
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. 

Souls of Poets dead and gone, 
What Elysium have ye known, 
Happy field or mossy cavern, 
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? 

J. Keats 

CCLXXIII 
THE PRIDE OF YOUTH 

Proud Maisie is in the wood, 

Walking so early; 
Sweet Robin sits on the bush, 

Singing so rarely. 

'Tell me, thou bonny bird. 
When shall I marry me? ' 

— ' When six braw gentlemen 
Kirkward shall carry ye.' 

*Who makes the bridal bed, 
Birdie say truly? ' 



BOOK FOURTH 115 

— ' The gray-headed sexton 
That delves the grave duly. 

'The glowworm o'er grave and stone 

Shall light thee steady; 
The owl from the steeple sing 

Welcome, proud lady.' 

Sir W. Scott 

CCLXXIV 

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 

One more Unfortunate 
Weary of breath 
Rashly importunate, 
Gone to her death! 
Take her up tenderly, 
Lift her with care; 
Fashion'd so slenderly, 
Young, and so fair! 

Look at her garments 
Clinging like cerements; 
Whilst the wave constantly 
Drips from her clothing; 
Take her up instantly, 
Loving, not loathing. 

Touch her not scornfully, 
Think of her mournfully, 
Gently and humanly; 
Not of the stains of her — 



116 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

All that remains of her 
Now is pure womanly. 

Make no deep scrutiny 
Into her mutiny 
Rash and undutiful: 
Past all dishonour, 
Death has left on her 
Only the beautiful. 

Still, for all slips of hers, 
One of Eve's family — 
Wipe those poor lips of hers 
Oozing so clammily. 

Loop up her tresses 
Escaped from the comb, 
Her fair auburn tresses; 
Whilst wonderment guesses 
Where was her home? 

Who was her father? 
Who was her mother? 
Had she a sister? 
Had she a brother? 
Or was there a dearer one 
Still, and a nearer one 
Yet, than all other? 

Alas! for the rarity 
Of Christian charity 
Under the sun! 



BOOK FOURTH ^^^ 

Oh! it was pitiful! 
Near a whole city full, 
Home she had none. 

Sisterly, brotherly, 
Fatherly, motherly 
Feehngs had changed: 
Love, by harsh evidence, 
Thrown from its eminence; 
Even God's providence 
Seeming estranged. . 

Where the lamps quiver 

So far in the river, 

With many a light 

From window and casement, 

From garret to basement, 

She stood with amazement. 

Houseless by night. 

The bleak wind of March 
Made her tremble and shiver 
But not the dark arch, 
. Or the black flowing river: 
Mad from life's history. 

Glad to death's mystery 

Swift to be hurl'd — 

Any where, any where 

Out of the world! 

In she plunged boldly, 
No matter how coldly 



118 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The rough river ran, — 
Over the brink of it, 
Picture it — think of it, 
Dissolute Man! 
Lave in it, drink of it, 
Then, if you can! 

Take her up tenderly, 
Lift her with care; 
Fashion'd so slenderly, 
Young, and so fair! 

Ere her limbs frigidly 
Stiffen too rigidly, 
Decently, kindly. 
Smooth and compose them, 
And her eyes, close them. 
Staring so blindly! 

Dreadfully staring 
Thro' muddy impurity, 
As when with the daring 
Last look of despairing 
Fix'd on futurity. 

Perishing gloomily, 

Spurr'd by contumely. 

Cold inhumanity, 

Burning insanity, 

Into her rest. 

— Cross her hands humbly 



BOOK FOURTH 119 

As if praying dumbly, 
Over her breast! 

Owning her weakness, 
Her evil behaviour, 
And leaving, with meekness. 
Her sins to her Saviour. 

T. Hood 

CCLXXV 

ELEGY 

Oh snatch'd away in beauty's bloom! 
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; 
But on thy turf shall roses rear 
Their leaves, the earliest of the year, 
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom: 

And oft by yon blue gushing stream 
Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, 
And feed deep thought with many a dream, 
And lingering pause and Hghtly tread ; 
Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed the dead! 

Away! we know that tears are vain, 
That Death nor heeds nor hears distress: 
Will this unteach us to complain? 
Or make one mourner weep the less? 
And thou, who tell'st me to forget. 
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet. 

Lord Byron 



120 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCLXXVI 

HESTER 

When maidens such as Hester die 
Their place ye may not well supply, 
Though ye among a thousand try 

With vain endeavour. 
A month or more hath she been dead; 
Yet cannot I by force be led 
To think upon the wormy bed 

And her together. 

A springy motion in her gait, 

A rising step, did indicate 

Of pride and joy no common rate 

That flush'd her spirit: 
I know not by what name beside 
I shall it call : if 'twas not pride. 
It was a joy to that alUed 

She did inherit. 

Her parents held the Quaker rule, 
Which doth the human feeling cool; 
But she was train'd in Nature's school, 

Nature had blest her. 
A waking eye, a prying mind, 
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind; 
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind, 

Ye could not Hester. 

My sprightly neighbour! gone before 
To that unknown and silent shore. 



BOOK FOURTH 121 

Shall we not meet, as heretofore 

Some summer morning — 

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray 

Hath struck a bliss upon the day, 

A bliss that would not go away, 
A sweet fore-warning? 

C. Lamb 

CCLXXVII 
TO ^lARY 

If I had thought thou couldst have died, 

I might not weep for thee; 
But I forgot, when by thy side, 

That thou couldst mortal be: 
It never through my mind had past 

The time would e'er be o'er, 
And I on thee should look my last. 

And thou shouldst smile no more! 

And still upon that face I look, 

And think 'twill smile again; 
And still the thought I will not brook 

That I must look in vain! 
But when I speak — thou dost not say 

What thou ne'er left'st unsaid; 
And now I feel, as well I may. 

Sweet Mary! thou art dead! 

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art, 
All cold and all serene — 



122 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

I still might press thy silent heart, 
And where thy smiles have been. 

While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have, 
Thou seemest still mine own; 

But there I lay thee in thy grave — 
And I am now alone! 

I do not think, where'er thou art, 

Thou hast forgotten me; 
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart. 

In thinking too of thee : 
Yet there was round thee such a dawn 

Of light ne'er seen before, 
As fancy never could have drawn, 

And never can restore! 
'^'^': , C. Wolfe 

CCLXXVIII 
CORONACH 

He is gone on the mountain. 

He is lost to the forest, 
Like a summer-dried fountain. 

When our need was the sorest. 
The font reappearing 

From the raindrops shall borrow. 
But to us comes no cheering, 

To Duncan no morrow! 

The hand of the reaper 

Takes the ears that are hoary. 



BOOK FOURTH 123 

But the voice of the weeper 

Wails manhood in glory. 
The autumn winds rushing 

Waft the leaves that are searest, 
But our flower was in flushing 

When blighting was nearest. 

Fleet foot on the correi, 

Sage counsel in cumber, 
Red hand in the foray, 

How sound is thy slumber! 
Like the dew on the mountain, 

Like the foam on the river, 
Like the bubble on the fountain. 

Thou art gone; and for ever! 

Sir W. Scott 

CCLXXIX 
THE DEATH BED 

We watch'd her breathing thro' the night, 

Her breathing soft and low, 
As in her breast the wave of life 

Kept heaving to and fro. 

So silently we seem'd to speak, 

So slowly moved about. 
As we had lent her half our powers 

To eke her living out. 

Our very hopes belied our fears, 
Our fears our hopes behed — 



124 THE aOLDEN TREASURY 

We thought her dying when she slept, 
And sleeping when she died. 

For when the morn came dim and sad 
And chill with early showers, 

Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 
Another morn than ours. 

T. Hood 

CCLXXX 
AGNES 

I SAW her in childhood — 

A bright, gentle thing. 
Like the dawn of the morn, 

Or the dews of the spring: 
The daisies and hare-bells 

Her playmates all day; 
Herself as light-hearted 

And artless as they. 

I saw her again — 

A fair girl of eighteen, 
Fresh glittering with graces 

Of mind and of mien. 
Her speech- was all music ; 

Like moonlight she shone; 
The envy of many, 

The glory of one. 

Years, years fleeted over — 
I stood at her foot: 



BOOK FOURTH 125 

The bud had grown blossom, 

The blossom was fruit. 
A dignified mother, 

Her infant she bore; 
And look'd, I thought, fairer 

Than ever before. 

I saw her once more — 

^Twas the day that she died; 
Heaven's light was around her, 

And God at her side; 
No wants to distress her. 

No fears to appal — 
O then, I felt, then 

She was fairest of all ! 

H, F. Lyte 

CCLXXXI 
ROSABELLE 

O LISTEN, listen, ladies gay! 

No haughty feat of arms I tell; 
Soft is the note, and sad the lay 

That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. 

'Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew! 

And, gentle ladye, deign to stay! 
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, 

Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. 

'The blackening wave is edged with white; 
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; 



126 ^THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, 
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nighc 

* Last night the gifted Seer did view 

A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay; 
Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch; 
Why cross the gloomy firth to-day? ' 

''Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir 
To-night at Roshn leads the ball, 

But that my ladye-mother there 
Sits lonely in her castle-hall. 

* 'Tis not because the ring they ride, 

And Lindesay at the ring rides well, 
But that my sire the wine will chide 
If 'tis not fiU'd by Rosabelle.' 

— O'er Roslin all that dreary night 

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 
*Twas broader than the watch-fire's light, 
And redder than the bright moonbeam. 

It glared on Roslin' s castled rock, 
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 

'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak, 
And seen from cavern 'd Hawthornden. 

Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud 
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie, 

Each Baron, for a sable shroud. 
Sheathed in his iron panoply. 



BOOK FOURTH 127 

Seem'd all on fire within, around, 

Deep sacristy and altar's pale; 
Shone every pillar foliage-bound, 

And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. 

Blazed battlement and pinnet high, 

Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair — 

So still they blaze, when fate is nigh 
The lordly line of high Saint Clair. 

There are twenty of Roslui's barons bold — 
Lie buried within that proud chapelle; 

Each one the holy vault doth hold — 
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle. 

And each Saint Clair was buried there. 
With candle, with book, and with knell; 

But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung 
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle. 

Sir W. Scott 

CCLXXXII 

ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN 

I SAW wherein the shroud did lurk 

A curious frame of Nature's work; 

A flow'ret crushed in the bud, 

A nameless piece of Babyhood, 

Was in her cradle-coffin lying; 

Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: 

So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb 



128 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

For darker closets of the tomb! 

She did but ope an eye, and put 

A clear beam forth, then straight up shut 

For the long dark: ne'er more to see 

Through glasses of mortality. 

Riddle of destiny, who can show 

What thy short visit meant, or know 

What thy errand here below? 

Shall we say, that Nature blind 

Check'd her hand, and changed her mind 

Just when she had exactly wrought 

A finish'd pattern without fault? 

Could she flag, or could she tire. 

Or lack'd she the Promethean fire 

(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) 

That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? 

Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure 

Life of health, and days mature: 

Woman's self in miniature! 

Limbs so fair, they might supply 

(Themselves now but cold imagery) 

The sculptor to make Beauty by. 

Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry 

That babe or mother, one must die; 

So in mercy left the stock 

And cut the branch; to save the shock 

Of young years widow'd, and the pain 

When Single State comes back again 

To the lone man who, reft of wife. 

Thenceforward drags a maimed life? 

The economy of Heaven is dark, 



BOOK FOURTH 129 

And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark 

Why human buds, Uke this, should fall, 

More brief than fly ephemeral 

That has his day; while shrivell'd crones 

Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; 

And crabbed use the conscience sears 

In sinners of an hundred years. 

— Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, 

Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss: 

Rites, which custom does impose, . 

Silver bells, and baby clothes; 

Coral redder than those lips 

Which pale death did late eclipse; 

Music framed for infants' glee. 

Whistle never tuned for thee; 

Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, 

Loving hearts were they which gave them. 

Let not one be missing; nurse, 

See them laid upon the hearse 

Of infant slain by doom perverse. 

Why should kings and nobles have 

Pictured trophies to their grave. 

And we, churls, to thee deny 

Thy pretty toys with thee to he — 

A more harmless vanity? 

C. Lamb 



130 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCLXXXIII 
IN MEMORIAM 

A child's a plaything for an hour; 

Its pretty tricks we try 
For that or for a longer space, — 

Then tire, and lay it by. 

But I knew one that to itself 

All seasons could control; 
That would have mock'd the sense of pain 

Out of a grieved soul. 

Thou straggler into loving arms, 

Young climber up of knees, 
When I forget thy thousand ways 

Then life and all shall cease! 

M. Lamb 



CCLXXXIV 

THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET 

Where art thou, my beloved Son, 
Where art thou, worse to me than dead? 
Oh find me, prosperous or undone! 
Or if the grave be now thy bed. 
Why am I ignorant of the same 
That I may rest; and neither blame 
Nor sorrow may attend thy name? 



BOOK FOURTH 131 

Seven years, alas! to have received 
No tidings of an only child — 
To have despair'd, have hoped, beheved, 
And been for ever more beguiled, — 
Sometimes with thoughts of very bhss! 
I catch at them, and then I miss; 
Was ever darkness like to this? 

He was among the prime in worth, 
An object beauteous to behold; 
Well born, well bred; I sent him forth 
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold: 
If things ensued that wanted grace 
As hath been said, they were not base; 
And never blush was on my face. 

Ah! little doth the young-one dream 
When full of play and childish cares, 
What power is in his wildest scream 
Heard by his mother unawares! 
He loiows it not, he cannot guess; 
Years to a mother bring distress; 
But do not make her love the less. 

Neglect me! no, I suffer'd long 
From that ill thought; and being blind 
Said 'Pride shall help me in my wrong: 
Kind mother have I been, as kind 
As ever breathed:' and that is true; 
I've wet my path with tears like dew, 
Weeping for him when no one knew. 



132 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

My Son, if thou be humbled, poor, 
Hopeless of honour and of gain. 
Oh! do not dread thy mother's door; 
Think not of me with grief and pain: 
I now can see with better eyes; 
And worldly grandeur I despise 
And fortune with her gifts and lies. 

Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings, 
And blasts of heaven will aid their flight; 
They mount — how short a voyage brings 
The wanderers back to their delight! 
Chains tie us down by land and sea; 
And wishes, vain as mine, may be 
All that is left to comfort thee. 

Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan 
Maim'd, mangled by inhuman men; 
Or thou upon a desert thrown 
Inheritest the lion's den; 
Or hast been summon'd to the deep 
Thou, thou, and all thy mates to keep 
An incommunicable sleep. 

I look for ghosts: but none will force 
Their way to me; 'tis falsely said 
That there was ever intercourse 
Between the living and the dead; 
For surely then I should have sight 
Of him I wait for day and night 
With love and longings infinite. 



BOOK FOURTH 133 

My apprehensions come in crowds; 
I dread the rustling of the grass; 
The very shadows of the clouds 
Have power to shake me as they pass: 
I question things, and do not find 
One that will answer to my mind; 
And all the world appears unkind. 

Beyond participation lie 
My troubles, and beyond relief: 
If any chance to heave a sigh 
They pity me, and not my grief. 
Then come to me, my Son, or send 
Some tidings that my woes may end! 
I have no other earthly friend. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLXXXV 

HUNTING SONG 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 

On the mountain dawns the day; 

All the jolly chase is here 

With hawk and horse and hunting-spear; 

Hounds are in tlieir couples yelling, 

Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling, 

Merrily merrily mingle they, 

* Waken, lords and ladies gay.' 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 

The mist has left the mountain gray, 



134 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Springlets in the dawn are steaming, 
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming; 
And foresters have busy been 
To track the buck in thicket green; 
Now we come to chant our lay 

* Waken, lords and ladies gay.' 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
To the greenwood haste away; 
We can show you where he lies. 
Fleet of foot and tall of size; 
We can show the marks he made 
When 'gainst the oak his antlers fray'd; 
You shall see him brought to bay; 

* Waken, lords and ladies gay.' 

Louder, louder chant the lay 

Waken, lords and ladies gay! 

Tell them youth and mirth and glee 

Run a course as well as we; 

Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk, 

Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk; 

Think of this, and rise with day. 

Gentle lords and ladies gay! 

Sir W. Scott 

CCLXXXVI 

TO THE SKYLARK 

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! 

Post thou despise the earth where cares abound? 



BOOK FOURTH 135 

Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? 
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 
Those quivering wings composed, that music still! 

To the last point of vision, and beyond 

Mount, daring warbler ! — that love-prompted strain 

— ^Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond — 

Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: 

Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing 

All independent of the leafy Spring. 

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; 

A privacy of glorious light is thine, 

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 

Of harmony, with instinct more divine; 

Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam — 

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLXXXVn 

TO A SKYLARK 

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! 

Bird thou never wert. 
That from heaven, or near it 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest, 



136 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Like a cloud of fire, 
The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun 
O'er which clouds are brightening, 

Thou dost float and run, 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 

The pale purple even 

Melts aroimd thy flight; 
Like a star of heaven 
In the broad dayhght 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight: 

Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere. 
Whose intense lamp narrows 

In the white davra clear 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare. 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over- 
flow'd. 

What thou art we know not; 
What is most like thee? 



BOOK FOURTH 137 

From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody; — 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 

Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace tower. 
Soothing her love-laden 

Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the 
view : 

Like a rose embower 'd 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflower'd, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged 
thieves. 

Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass, 



138 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Rain-awaken'd flowers, 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 

Teach us, sprite or bird. 

What sweet thoughts are thine: 
I have never heard 

Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 

Chorus hymeneal 

Or triumphal chaunt 
Match 'd with thine, would be all 

But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains? 

What shapes of sky or plain? 
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be: 
Shadow of annoyance 

Never came near thee: 
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 

Waking or asleep 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 



BOOK FOURTH 139 

Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
thought. 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear; 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound. 
Better than all treasures 

That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow. 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 

P. B. Shelley 



140 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCLXXXVIII 

THE GREEN LINNET 

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed 
Their snow-white blossoms on my head, 
With brightest sunshine round me spread 
Of Spring's unclouded weather, 
In this sequester'd nook how sweet 
To sit upon my orchard-seat! 
And flowers and birds once more to greet, 
My last year's friends together. 

One have I mark'd, the happiest guest 
In all this covert of the blest : 
Hail to Thee, far above the rest 
In joy of voice and pinion! 
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array 
Presiding Spirit here to-day 
Dost lead the revels of the May; 
And this is thy dominion. 

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers, 
Make all one band of paramours. 
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers, 
Art sole in thy employment; 
A Life, a Presence like the air. 
Scattering thy gladness without care. 
Too blest with any one to pair; 
Thyself thy own enjoyment. 

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees 
That twinkle to the gusty breeze, 



BOOK FOURTH 141 

Behold him perch'd in ecstasies 
Yet seeming still to hover; 
There ! where the flutter of his wings 
Upon his back and body flings 
Shadows and sunny glimmerings, 
That cover him all over. 

My dazzled sight he oft deceives — 
A brother of the dancing leaves; 
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves 
Pours forth his song in gushes; 
As if by that exulting strain 
He mock'd and treated with disdain 
The voiceless Form he chose to feign, 
While fluttering in the bushes. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCLXXXIX 
TO THE CUCKOO 

BLITHE new-comer! I have heard, 

1 hear thee and rejoice: 

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, 
Or but a wandering Voice? 

While I am lying on the grass 
Thy twofold shout I hear; 
From hill to hill it seems to pass, 
At once far off and near. 

Though babbling only to the valQ 
Of sunshine and of flowers. 



142 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Thou bringest unto me a tale 
Of visionary hours. 

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! 

Even yet thou art to me 

No bird, but an invisible thing, 

A voice, a mystery; 

The same whom in my school-boy days 
I listen'd to; that Cry 
Which made me look a thousand ways 
In bush, and tree, and sky. 

To seek thee did I often rove 
Through woods and on the green; 
And thou wert still a hope, a love; 
Still long'd for, never seen! 

And I can listen to thee yet; 
Can lie upon the plain 
And listen, till I do beget 
That golden time again. 

O blessed Bird ! the earth we pace 
Again appears to be 
An unsubstantial, faery place. 
That is fit home for Thee ! 

W» Wordsworth 



BOOK FOURTH 143 

ccxc 

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot. 
But being too happy in thine happiness, — 
That thou, light-winged Drj^ad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot 
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 

O, for a draught of vintage! that bath been 

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country green, 

Dance, and Proven9aI song, and sunburnt mirth f 
O for a beaker full of the warm South, 

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 
And purple-stained mouth; 
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 

And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 

What thou among the leaves hast never known, 

The weariness, the fever, and the fret 

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; 

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, 

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; 



144 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
And leaden-eyed despairs; 
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, 

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: 
Already with thee! tender is the night. 

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 
Clustered around by all her starry Fays; 
But here there is no light, 
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy 
ways. 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 

Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; 
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; 
And mid-May's eldest child. 
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine. 

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Darkling I listen; and for many a time 

I have been half in love with easeful Death, 
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, 



BOOK FOURTH 145 

To take into the air my quiet breath; 
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
In such an ecstasy! 
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — 
To thy high requiem become a sod. 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 

No hungry generations tread thee down; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown: 
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 
The same that oft-times hath 
Charm'cl magic casements, opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell 

To toll me back from thee to my sole self I 
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 
Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep 
In the next valley-glades: 
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 

Fled is that music : — Do I wake or sleep? 

J. Keats 



146 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXCI 

UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE 
SEPT. 3, 1802 

Earth has not anything to show more fair: 
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
A sight so touching in its majesty: 
This City now doth like a garment wear 

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, 
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
Open unto the fields, and to the sky, — 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 

Never did sun more beautifully steep 
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; 
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! 

The river glideth at its o^vn sweet will: 
Dear God ! . the very houses seem asleep ; 
And all that mighty heart is lying still! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXCII 

To one who has been long in city pent, 

'Tis very sweet to look into the fair 

And open face of heaven, — to breathe a prayer 

Full in the smile of the blue firmament. 

Who is more happy, when, with heart's content, 
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair 



BOOK FOURTH 147 

Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair 
And gentle tale of love and languishment? 

Returning home at evening, with an ear 
Catching the notes of Philomel, — an eye 
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, 

He mourns that day so soon has glided by: 
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear 
That falls through the clear ether silently. 

J. Keats 

CCXCIII 

OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT 

I MET a traveller from an antique land 
Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, 
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown 
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; 
And on the pedestal these words appear : 
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair ! ' 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, 
The lone and level sj'.nds stretch far away. 

P. B. Shelley 



148 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXCIV 

COMPOSED AT NEIDPATH CASTLE, THE 

PROPERTY OF LORD QUEENSBERRY 

1803 

Degenerate Douglas! oh, the unworthy lord! 
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please 
And love of havoc, (for with such disease 
Fame taxes him,) that he could send forth word 

To level with the dust a noble horde, 

A brotherhood of venerable trees, 

Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these, 

Beggar'd and outraged! — Many hearts deplored 

The fate of those old trees; and oft with pain 

The traveller at this day will stop and gaze 

On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed : 

For shelter'd places, bosoms, nooks, and bays, 
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed, 
And the green silent pastures, yet remain. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXCV 

THE BEECH TREE'S PETITION 

O LEAVE this barren spot to me! 

Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree! 

Though bush or floweret never grow 



BOOK FOURTH 149 

My dark unwarming shade below; 
Nor summer bud perfume the dew 
Of rosy blush, or yellow hue; 
Nor fruits of autumn, blossom-born, 
My green and glossy leaves adorn; 
Nor murmuring tribes from me derive 
Th' ambrosial amber of the hive; 
Yet leave this barren spot to me: 
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree! 

Thrice twenty summers I have seen 
The sky grow bright, the forest green; 
And many a wintry wind have stood 
In bloomless, fruitless solitude, 
Since childhood in my pleasant bower 
First spent its sweet and sportive hour; 
Since youthful lovers in my shade 
Their vows of truth and rapture made, 
And on my trunk's surviving frame 
Carved many a long-forgotten name. 
Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound. 
First breathed upon this sacred ground; 
By all that Love has whisper'd here, 
Or Beauty heard with ravish'd ear; 
As Love's own altar honour me: 
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree! 

T, Campbell 



150 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCXCVI 
ADMONITION TO A TRAVELLER 

Yes, there is holy pleasure in thine eye! 

— The lovely Cottage in the guardian nook 
Hath stirr'd thee deeply; with its own dear brook, 
Its own small pasture, almost its own sky! 

But covet not the abode; forbear to sigh 
As many do, repining while they look; 
Intruders — who would tear from Nature's book 
This precious leaf with harsh impiety. 

— Think what the home must be if it were thine, 
Even thine, though few thy wants ! — Roof, window, 

door, 
The very flowers are sacred to the Poor, 

The roses to the porch which they entwine: 
Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day 
On which it should be touch'd, would melt away! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXCVII 

TO THE HIGHLAND GIRL OF 
INVERSNEYDE 

. Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower 
Of beauty is thy earthly dower! 
Twice seven consenting years have shed 
Their utmost bounty on thy head : 



BOOK FOURTH 151 

And these gray rocks, that household lawn, 

Those trees — a veil just half withdrawn, 

This fall of water that doth make 

A murmur near the silent lake, 

This little bay, a quiet road 

That holds in shelter thy abode; 

In truth together ye do seem 

Like something fashion'd in a dream; 

Such forms as from their covert peep 

When earthly cares are laid asleep! 

But O fair Creature! in the light 

Of common day, so heavenly bright, 

I bless Thee, Vision as thou art, 

I bless thee with a human heart: 

God shield thee to thy latest years! 

Thee neither know I nor thy peers: 

And yet my eyes are fill'd with tears. 

With earnest feeling I shall pray 
For thee when I am far away; 
For never saw I mien or face 
In which more plainly I could trace 
Benignity and home-bred sense 
Ripening in perfect innocence. 
Here scatter'd, hke a random seed. 
Remote from men, Thou dost not need 
The embarrass'd look of shy distress. 
And maidenly shamef acedness : 
Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear 
The freedom of a Mountaineer: 
A face with gladness overspread; 



152 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Soft smiles, by human kindness bred; 
And seemliness complete, that sways 
Thy courtesies, about thee plays; 
With no restraint, but such as springs 
From quick and eager visitings 
Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach 
Of thy few words of English speech: 
A bondage sweetly brook'd, a strife 
That gives thy gestures grace and life! 
So have I, not unmoved in mind, 
Seen birds of tempest-loving kind — 
Thus beating up against the wind. 

What hand but would a garland cull 
For thee who art so beautiful? 
happy pleasure! here to dwell 
Beside thee in some heathy dell; 
Adopt your homely ways, and dress, 
A shepherd, thou a shepherdess! 
But I could frame a wish for thee 
More like a grave reality : 
Thou art to me but as a wave 
Of the wild sea: and I would have 
Some claim upon thee, if I could, 
Though but of common neighbourhood. 
What joy to hear thee, and to see! 
Thy elder brother I would be, 
Thy father — anything to thee. 

Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace 
Hath led me to 'this lonely place; 



BOOK FOURTH 153 

Joy have I had ; and going hence 

I bear away my recompence. 

In spots like these it is we prize 

Our Memory, feel that she hath eyes: 

Then why should I be loth to stir? 

I feel this place was made for her; 

To give new pleasure like the past, 

Continued long as life shall last. 

Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart, 

Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part; 

For I, methinks, till I grow old 

As fair before me shall behold 

As I do now, the cabin small, 

The lake, the bay, the waterfall; 

And Thee, the Spirit of them all! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXCVIII 

THE REAPER 

Behold her, single in the field, 
Yon solitary Highland Lass ! 
Reaping and singing by herself; 
Stop here, or gently pass! 
Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 
And sings a melancholy strain; 
O listen! for the vale profound 
Is overflowing with the sound. 

No nightingale did ever chaunt 
More welcome notes to weary bands 



154 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Of travellers in some shady haunt, 
Among Arabian sands: 
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard 
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, 
Breaking the silence of the seas 
Among the farthest Hebrides. 

Will no one tell me what she sings? 
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
For old, unhappy, far-off things, 
And battles long ago: 
Or is it some more humble lay, 
Familiar matter of to-day? 
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 
That has been, and may be again! 

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang 
As if her song could have no ending; 
I saw her singing at her work. 
And o'er the sickle bending; — 
I listened, motionless and still; 
And, as I mounted up the hill, 
The music in my heart I bore 
Long after it was heard no more. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCXCIX 

THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN 

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, 
Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three 
years : 



BOOK FOURTH 155 

Pocr Susan haspass'd bj^ the spot, and has heard 
In the silence of morning the song of the bird. 

'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees 
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; 
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury ghde, 
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. 

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale 
Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail; 
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, 
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. 

She looks, and her heart is in heaven : but they fade, 
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade; 
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, 
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCC 

TO A LADY, WITH A GUITAR 

Ariel to Miranda : — Take 

This slave of music, for the sake 

Of him, who is the slave of thee; 

And teach it all the harmony 

In which thou canst, and only thou, 

Make the delighted spirit glow, 

TiU joy denies itself again 

And, too intense, is turn'd to pain. 

For by permission and command 



156 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 

Poor Ariel sends this silent token 

Of more than ever can be spoken; 

Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who 

From life to hfe must still pursue 

Your happiness, for thus alone 

Can Ariel ever find his own. 

From Prosperous enchanted cell, 

As the mighty verses tell. 

To the throne of Naples he 

Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 

Flitting on, your prow before, 

Like a living meteor. 

When you die, the silent Moon 

In her interlunar swoon 

Is not sadder in her cell 

Than deserted Ariel : — 

When you live again on earth, 

Like an unseen Star of birth 

Ariel guides you o'er the sea 

Of life from your nativity : — 

Many changes have been run 

Since Ferdinand and you begun 

Your course of love, and Ariel still 

Has track'd your steps and served your will. 

Now in humbler, happier lot, 

This is all remember'd not; 

And now, alas! the poor Sprite is 

Imprison'd for some fault of his 

In a body like a grave — 

From you he only dares to crave. 



BOOK FOURTH 157 

For his service and his sorrow 
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 

The artist who this idol wrought 

To echo all harmonious thought, 

Fell'd a tree, while on the steep 

The woods were in their winter sleep, 

Rock'd in that repose divine 

On the wind-swept Apennine; 

And dreaming, some of Autumn past, 

And some of Spring approaching fast, 

And some of April buds and showers, 

And some of songs in July bowers. 

And all of love : And so this tree, — 

Oh that such our death may be ! — 

Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 

To live in happier form again: 

From which, beneath heaven's fairest star, 

The artist wrought this loved Guitar; 

And taught it justly to reply 

To all who question skilfully 

In language gentle as thine own; 

Whispering in enamour'd tone 

Sweet oracles of woods and dells. 

And summer winds in sylvan cells : 

— For it had learnt all harmonies 

Of the plains and of the skies. 

Of the forests and the mountains. 

And the many- voiced fountains; 

The clearest echoes of the hills. 

The softest notes of falling rills, 



158 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The melodies of birds and bees, 
The murmuring of summer seas, 
And pattering rain, and breathing dew, 
And airs of evening; and it knew 
That seldom-heard mysterious sound 
Which, driven on its diurnal round. 
As it floats through boundless day, 
Our world enkindles on its way: 
— All this it knows, but will not tell 
To those who cannot question well 
The Spirit that inhabits it; 
It talks according to the wit 
Of its companions; and no more 
Is heard than has been felt before 
By those who tempt it to betray 
These secrets of an elder day. 
But, sweetly as it answers will 
Flatter hands of perfect skill. 
It keeps its highest holiest tone 
For our beloved Friend alone. 

P. B. Shelley 

CCCI 

THE DAFFODILS 

I wander'd lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host of golden daffodils, 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 



BOOK FOURTH 159 

Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretch'd in never-ending line 
Along the margin of a bay: 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced, but they 

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee : — 

A Poet could not but be gay 

In such a jocund company! 

I gazed — and gazed — but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought; 

For oft, when on my couch I he 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCII 

TO THE DAISY 

With little here to do or see 

Of things that in the great world be, 

Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee 

For thou art worthy. 
Thou unassuming Common-place 
Of Nature, with that homely face, 



160 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

And yet with something of a grace 
Which Love makes for thee! 

Oft on the dappled turf at ease 

I sit and play with similes, 

Loose types of things through all degrees, 

Thoughts of thy raising; 
And many a fond and idle name 
I give to thee, for praise or blame 
As is the humour of the game, 

While I am gazing. 

A nun demure, of lowly port; 

Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, ' 

In thy simplicity the sport 

Of all temptations; 
A queen in crown of rubies drest; 
A starveling in a scanty vest; 
Are all, as seems to suit thee best, 

Thy appellations. 

A little Cyclops, with one eye 

Staring to threaten and defy, 

That thought comes next — and instantly 

The freak is over. 
The shape will vanish, and behold! 
A silver shield with boss of gold 
That spreads itself, some faery bold 

In fight to cover. 

I see thee glittering from afar — 
And then thou art a pretty star, 



BOOK FOURTH 161 

Not quite so fair as many are 

In heaven above thee! 
Yet Hke a star, with gUttering crest, 
Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest; — 
May peace come never to his nest 

Who shall reprove thee! 

Sweet Flower! for by that name at last 

When all my reveries are past 

I call thee, and to that cleave fast. 

Sweet silent Creature! 
That breath 'st with me in sun and air, 
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair 
My heart with gladness, and a share 

Of thy meek nature! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCIII 

ODE TO AUTUMN 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 

Conspiring with him how to load and bless 

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; 

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees. 

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more. 

And still more, later flowers for the bees. 

Until they think warm days will never cease; 

For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells. 



162 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 

And sometimes hke a gleaner thou dost keep 

Steady thy laden head across a brook; 

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, — 

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day 

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

Among the river-sallows, borne aloft 

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 

J. Keats 

CCCIV 
ODE TO WINTER 

Germany, December, 1800 

When first the fiery-mantled Sun 
His heavenly race began to run, 



BOOK FOURTH 163 

Round the earth and ocean blue 
His children four the Seasons flew. 

First, in green apparel dancing, 
The young Spring smiled with angel-grace; 

Rosy Summer next advancing, 
Rush'd into her sire's embrace — 
Her bright-hair'd sire, who bade her keep 

For ever nearest to his smiles, 
On Calpe's olive-shaded steep 

Or India's citron-cover'd isles: 
More remote, and buxom-brown. 

The Queen of vintage bow'd before his throne; 
A rich pomegranate gemm'd her crown, 

A ripe sheaf bound her zone. 

But howling Winter fled afar 
To hills that prop the polar star; 
And loves on deer-borne car to ride 
With barren darkness by his side, 
Round the shore where loud Lofoden 

Whirls to death the roaring whale, 
Round the hall where Runic Odin 

Howls his war-song to the gale; 
Save when adown the ravaged globe 

He travels on his native storm. 
Deflowering Nature's grassy robe 

And trampling on her faded form : — 
Till light's returning Lord assume 

The shaft that drives him to his polar field, 
Of power to pierce his raven plume 

And crystal-cover'd shield. 



164 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Oh, sire of storms! whose savage ear 
The Lapland drum delights to hear, 
When Frenzy with her blood-shot eye 
Implores thy dreadful deity — 
Archangel! Power of desolation! 

Fast descending as thou art, 
Say, hath mortal invocation 

Spells to touch thy stony heart? 
Then, sullen Winter! hear my prayer, 

And gently rule the ruin'd year; 
Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare 

Nor freeze the wretch's falling tear: 
To shuddering Want's unmantled bed 

Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lend, 
And gently on the orphan head 

Of Innocence descend. 

But chiefly spare, O king of clouds! 
The sailor on his airy shrouds, 
When wrecks and beacons strew the steep, 
And spectres walk along the deep. 
Milder yet thy snowy breezes 

Pour on yonder tented shores, 
Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes. 

Or the dark-brown Danube roars. 
Oh, winds of Winter! list ye there 

To many a deep and dying groan? 
Or start, ye demons of the midnight air. 

At shrieks and thunders louder' than your own? 
Alas! ev'n your unhallow'd breath 

May spare the victim fallen low; 



BOOK FOURTH 165 

But Man will ask no truce to death, — 
No bounds to human woe. 

T. Campbell 

CCCV 
YARROW UNVISITED 
1803 
From StirHng Castle we had seen 
The mazy Forth unravell'd, 
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay 
And with the Tweed had travell'd; 
And when we came to Clovenford, 
Then said my Svinsome Marrow/ 
' Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, 
And see the Braes of Yarrow.' 

'Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town, 

Who have been buying, selling, 

Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their owm, 

Each maiden to her dwelling! 

On Yarrow's banks let herons feed, 

Hares couch, and rabbits burrow; 

But we will downward with the Tweed, 

Nor turn aside to Yarrow. 

'There's Gala Water, Leader Haughs, 

Both lying right before us; 

And Dryburgh, where with chiming Tweed 

The lintwhites sing in chorus; 

There's pleasant Tiviot-dale, a land 



166 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Made blithe with plough and harrow: 
Why throw away a needful day 
To go in search of Yarrow? 

'What's Yarrow but a river bare 

That glides the dark hills under? 

There are a thousand such elsewhere 

As worthy of your wonder.' 

— Strange words they seem'd of slight and scorn; 

My True-love sigh'd for sorrow, 

And look'd me in the face, to think 

I thus could speak of Yarrow! 

*0 green,' said I, 'are Yarrow's holms, 
And sweet is Yarrow flowing! 
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, 
But we will leave it growing. 
O'er hilly path and open strath 
We'll wander Scotland thorough; 
But, though so near, we will not turn 
Into the dale of Yarrow. 

'Let beeves and home-bred kine partake 
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; 
The swan on still Saint Mary's Lake 
Float double, swan and shadow! 
We will not see them; will not go 
To-day, nor yet to-morrow; 
Enough if in our hearts we know 
There's such a place as Yarrow. 



BOOK FOURTH 167 

^Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown! 
It must, or we shall rue it : 
We have a vision of our o^vn. 
Ah! why should we undo it? 
The treasured dreams of times long past, 
We'll keep them, winsome Marrow! 
For when we're there, although 'tis fair, 
'Twill be another Yarrow! 

'If Care with freezing years should come 

And wandering seem but folly, — 

Should we be loth to stir from home, 

And yet be melancholy; 

Should life be dull, and spirits low, 

'Twill soothe us in our sorrow 

That earth has something yet to show, 

The bonny holms of Yarrow ! ' 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCVI 
YARROW VISITED 

September, I8I4 
And is this — Yarrow? — This the stream 
Of which my fancy cherish 'd 
So faithfully, a waking dream, 
Ae image that hath perish 'd? 
O that some minstrel's harp were near 
To utter notes of gladness 
And chase this silence from the air. 
That fills my heart with sadness! 



168 1HE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Yet why? — a silvery current flows 

With imcontroU'd meanderings ; 

Nor have these eyes by greener hills 

Been soothed, in all my wanderings. 

And, through her depths, Saint Mary's Lake 

Is visibly delighted; 

For not a feature of those hills 

Is in the mirror slighted. 

A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow Vale, 

Save where that pearly whiteness 

Is round the rising sun diffused, 

A tender hazy brightness; 

Mild dawn of promise! that excludes 

All profitless dejection; 

Though not unwilling here to admit 

A pensive recollection. 

Where w^as it that the famous Flower 

Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding? 

His bed perchance was yon smooth mound 

On which the herd is feeding: 

And haply from this crystal pool, 

Now peaceful as the morning, 

The Water-wraith ascended thrice, 

And gave his doleful warning. 

Delicious is the lay that sings 

The haunts of happy lovers, 

The path that leads them to the grove, 

The leafy grove that covers: 



BOOK FOURTH 169 

And pity sanctifies the verse 
That paints, by strength of sorrow, 
The unconquerable strength of love; 
Bear witness, rueful Yarrow! 

But thou that didst appear so fair 

To fond imagination, 

Dost rival in the light of day 

Her deUcate creation: 

Meek loveliness is round thee spread, 

A softness still and holy: 

The grace of forest charms decay'd, 

And pastoral melancholy. 

That region left, the vale unfolds 

Rich groves of lofty stature. 

With Yarrow winding through the pomp 

Of cultivated nature; 

And rising from those lofty groves 

Behold a ruin hoary, 

The shatter'd front of Newark's towers, 

Renown'd in Border story. 

Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom, 

For sportive youth to stray in. 

For manhood to enjoy his strength, 

And age to wear away in! 

Yon cottage seems a bower of bHss, 

A covert for protection 

Of tender thoughts that nestle there — 

The brood of chaste affection. 



170 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

How sweet on this autumnal day 

The wild-wood fruits to gather, 

And on my True-love's forehead plant 

A crest of blooming heather! 

And what if I enwreathed my o^\^l? 

'Twere no offence to reason; 

The sober hills thus deck their brows 

To meet the wintry season. 

I see — but not by sight alone, 

Loved Yarrow, have I won thee; 

A ray of Fancy still survives — 

Her sunshine plays upon thee! 

Thy ever-youthful waters keep 

A course of lively pleasure; 

And gladsome notes my lips can breathe 

Accordant to the measure. 

The vapours linger round the heights, 
They melt, and soon must vanish; 
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine — 
Sad thought! which I would banish, 
But that I know, where'er I go. 
Thy genuine image, Yarrow! 
Will dwell with me, to heighten joy, 
And cheer my mind in sorrow. 

W. Wordsworth 



BOOK FOURTH 171 

CCCVII 

THE INVITATION 

Best and brightest, come away, — 

Fairer far than this fair Day, 

Which, Hke thee, to those in sorrow 

Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 

To the rough year just awake 

In its cradle on the brake. 

The brightest hour of unborn Spring 

Through the winter wandering. 

Found, it seems, the halcyon morn 

To hoar February born; 

Bending from heaven, in azure mirth, 

It kiss'd the forehead of the earth, 

And smiled upon the silent sea, 

And bade the frozen streams be free, 

And waked to music all their fountains, 

And breathed upon the frozen mountainsj 

And like a prophetess of May 

Strew'd flowers upon the barren way^ 

Making the wintry world appear 

Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. 

Away, away, from men and towns, 
To the wild wood and the downs — 
To the silent wilderness 
Where the soul need not repress 
Its music, lest it should not find 
An echo in another's mind, 



172 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

While the touch of Nature's art 
Harmonizes heart to heart. 

Radiant Sister of the Day 
Awake! arise! and come away! 
To the wild woods and the plains, 
To the pools where ^\inter rains 
Image all their roof of leaves, 
Where the pine its garland weaves 
Of sapless green, and ivy dun. 
Round stems that never kiss the sun; 
Where the lawns and pastures be 
And the sandhills of the sea; 
Where the melting hoar-frost wets 
The daisy-star that never sets, 
And wind-flowers and violets 
Which yet join not scent to hue 
Crown the pale year weak and new; 
When the night is left behind 
In the deep east, dim and blind, 
And the blue noon is over us. 
And the multitudinous 
Billows murmur at our feet, 
Where the earth and ocean meet, 
And all things seem only one 
In the universal Sun. 

P. B. Shelley 



BOOK FOURTH 17: 

CCCVIII 

THE RECOLLECTION 

Now the last day of many days 
All beautiful and bright as thou, 
The loveliest and the last, is dead. 
Rise, IVIemory, and write its praise' 
Up — to thy wonted work ! come, trace 
The epitaph of glory fled. 
For now the earth has changed its face, 
A frown is on the heaven's brow. 

We wander'd to the Pine Forest 

That skirts the Ocean's foam; 
The lightest wind was in its nest, 

The tempest in its home. 
The whispering waves were half asleep, 

The clouds were gone to play, 
And on the bosom of the deep 

The smile of heaven lay; 
It seem'd as if the hour were one 

Sent from beyond the skies 
Which scatter'd from above the sun 

A hght of Paradise! 

We paused amid the pines that stood 

The giants of the waste. 
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude 

As serpents interlaced, — 
And soothed by every azure breath 

That under heaven is blown, 



174 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

To harmonies and hues beneath, 

As tender as its own : 
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep 

Like green waves on the sea, 
As still as in the silent deep 

The ocean-woods may be. 

How calm it was ! — The silence there 

By such a chain was bound, 
That even the busy woodpecker 

Made stiller with her sound 
The inviolable quietness; 

The breath of peace we drew 
With its soft motion made not less 

The calm that round us grew. 
There seem'd, from the remotest seat 

Of the white mountain waste 
To the soft flower beneath our feet, 

A magic circle traced, — 
A spirit interfused around, 

A thrilling silent life; 
To momentary peace it bound 

Our mortal nature's strife; — 
And still I felt the centre of 

The magic circle there 
Was one fair form that fill'd with love 

The lifeless atmosphere. 

We paused beside the pools that He 

Under the forest bough ; 
Each seem'd as 'twere a little sky 



BOOK FOURTH 175 

Gulf'd in a world below; 
A firmament of purple light 

Which in the dark earth lay, 
More bomidless than the depth of night 

And purer than the day — 
In which the lovely forests grew 

As in the upper air, 
More perfect both in shape and hue 

Than any spreading there. 
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, 

And through the dark-green wood 
The white sun twinkling like the dawn 

Out of a speckled cloud. 
Sweet views which in our world above 

Can never well be seen 
Were imaged in the water's love 

Of that fair forest green: 
And all was interfused beneath 

With an Elysian glow, 
An atmosphere without a breath, 

A softer day below. 
Like one beloved, the scene had lent 

To the dark water's breast 
Its every leaf and lineament 

With more than truth exprest; 
Until an envious wind crept by. 

Like an unwelcome thought 
Which from the mind's too faithful eye 

Blots one dear image out. 
• — Though thou art ever fair and kind, 

The forests ever green, 



176 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind 
Than calm in waters seen! 

P. B. Shelley 

CCCIX 

BY THE SEA* 

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; 
The holy time is quiet as a Nun 
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun 
Is sinking down in its tranquillity; 

The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea: 
Listen! the mighty Being is awake, 
And doth with his eternal motion make 
A sound hke thunder — everlastingly. 

Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here. 
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought 
Thy nature is not therefore less divine: 

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, 
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, 
God being with thee when we know it not. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCX 

SONG TO THE EVENING STAR 

Star that bringest home the bee, 
And sett'st the weary labourer free! 



BOOK FOURTH 177 

If any star shed peace, 'tis Thou 

That send'st it from above, 
Appearing when Heaven's breath and brow 

Are sweet as hers we love. 

Come to the luxuriant skies. 
Whilst the landscape's odours rise, 
Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard 

And songs when toil is done, 
From cottages whose smoke unstirr'd 

Curls yellow in the sun. 

Star of love's soft interviews, 
Parted lovers on thee ivjvjc; 
Their remembrancer in Heaven 

Of thriUing vows thou art. 
Too dehcious to be riven 

By absence from the heart. 

T. Campbell 

CCCXI 
DATUR HORA QUIETI 

The sun upon the lake is low. 

The wild birds hush their song, 
The hills have evening's deepest glow, 

Yet Leonard tarries long. 
Now all whom varied toil and care 

From home and love divide. 
In the calm sunset may repair 

Each to the loved one's side. 



178 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The noble dame, on turret high, 

Who waits her gallant knight. 
Looks to the western beam to spy 

The flash of armour bright. 
The village maid, with hand on brow 

The level ray to shade, 
Upon the footpath watches now 

For Colin's darkening plaid. 

Now to their mates the wild swans row, 

By day they swam apart. 
And to the thicket wanders slow 

The hind beside the hart. 
The woodlark at his partner's side 

Twitters his closing song — 
All meet whom day and care divide, 

But Leonard tarries long! 

Sir W. Scott 

CCCXII 

TO THE MOON 

Art thou pale for weariness 
Of cHmbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, 

Wandering companionless 
Among the stars that have a different birth, — 
And ever-changing, like a joyless eye 
That finds no object worth its constancy? 

P. B. Shelley 



BOOK FOURTH ]79 

CCCXIII 

TO SLEEP 

A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by 
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees 
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, 
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sk}^ , 

I've thought of all by turns, and yet do lie 
Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies 
Must hear, first utter'd from my orchard trees, 
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 

Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay, 
And could not win thee, Sleep ! by any stealth : 
So do not let me wear to-night away: 

Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth? 
Come, blessed barrier between day and day, 
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCXIV 
THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower 'd. 

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; 
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, 

The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. 

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw 
By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain, 



180 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

At the dead of the night a sweet Vision I saw; 
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. 

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array 
Far, far, I had roam'd on a desolate track: 

'Twas Autumn, — and sunshine arose on the way 
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back, 

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft 

In fife's morning march, when my bosom was young; 

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, 

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers 
sung. 

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore 
From my home and my weeping friends never to 
part; 

My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, 
And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart. 

' Stay — stay with us ! — rest ! — thou art weary and 
worn ! ' — 
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; — 
But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn. 
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. 

T. Carnpbell 

CCCXV 

A DREAM OF THE UNKNOWN 

I dream' D that as I wander 'd by the way 
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, 



BOOK FOURTH 181 

And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring 

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 

But kiss'd it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream. 

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets. 

Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth, 
The constellated flower that never sets; 

Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth 
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets 
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears. 
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. 

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd May, 

And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine 
Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; 

And wild roses, and ivy serpentine 

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; 

And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold. 

Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold. 

And nearer to the river's trembling edge 

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with 
white. 
And starry river-buds among the sedge, 

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, 
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge 

With moonlight beams of their own watery light; 



182 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 

Methought that of these visionary flowers 
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 

That the same hues, which in their natural bowers 
Were mingled or opposed, the like array 

Kept these imprison' d children of the Hours 
Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay, 

I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come 

That I might there present it — O ! to Whom? 

P. B. Shelleij 

CCCXVI 

KUBLA KHAN 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree : 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 

Down to a sunless sea. 
So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round : 
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills 
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree; 
And here were forests ancient as the hills, 
Enfolding suimy spots of greenery. 

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 



BOOK FOURTH 183 

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 

By woman wailing for her demon -lover! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething. 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced : 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: 

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man. 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean : 

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war! 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the waves; 

Where was heard the mingled measure 

From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, 
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 

A damsel with a dulcimer 

In a vision once I saw: 

It was an Abyssinian maid, 

And on her dulcimer she play'd, 

Singing of Mount Abora. 

Could I revive within me 

Her symphony and song. 
To such a deep delight 'twould win me 



184 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

That with music loud and long, 
I would build that dome in air, 
That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 
And all who heard should see them there, 
And all should cry, Beware! Beware! 
His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 
Weave a circle round him thrice, 
And close your eyes with holy dread, 
For he on hone^'^-dew hath fed, 
And drunk the milk of Paradise. 

*S'. T. Coleridge 

CCCXVII 

THE INNER VISION 

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes 
To pace the ground, if path be there or none, 
While a fair region round the traveller lies 
Which he forbears again to look upon: 

Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene. 
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone 
Of meditation, slipping in between 
The beauty coming and the beauty gone. 

— If Thought and Love desert us, from that day 
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse: 
With Thought and Love companions of our way — 

Whate'er the senses take or may refuse, — 
The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews 
Of inspiration on the humblest lay. 

W Wordsworth 



BOOK FOURTH 185 

CCCXVIII 

THE REALIM OF FANCY 

Ever let the Fancy roam; 

Pleasure never is at home: 

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, 

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; 

Then let winged Fancy wander 

Through the thought still spread beyond her: 

Open wide the mind's cage-door, 

She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. 

O sweet Fancy! let her loose; 

Summer's joys are spoilt by use, 

And the enjoying of the Spring 

Fades as does its blossoming; 

Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too, 

Blushing through the mist and dew, 

Cloys with tasting: What do then? 

Sit thee by the ingle, when 

The sear faggot blazes bright, 

Spirit of a winter's night; 

When the soundless earth is muffled, 

And the caked snow is shuffled 

From the ploughboy's heavy shoon; 

When the Night doth meet the Noon 

In a dark conspiracy 

To vanish Even from her sky. 

Sit thee there, and send abroad, 

With a mind self-overaw'd. 

Fancy, high-commission'd: — send her! 



186 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

She has vassals to attend her: 

She will bring, in spite of frost, 

Beauties that the earth hath lost; 

She will bring thee, all together, 

All delights of summer weather; 

All the buds and bells of May, 

From dewy sward or thorny spray; 

All the heaped Autumn's wealth, 

With a still, mysterious stealth: 

She will mix these pleasures up 

Like three fit wines in a cup. 

And thou shalt quaff it : — thou shalt hear 

Distant harvest-carols clear; 

Rustle of the reaped corn; 

Sweet birds antheming the morn: 

And, in the same moment — hark! 

'Tis the early April lark, 

Or the rooks, with busy caw, 

Foraging for sticks and straw. 

Thou shalt, at one glance, behold 

The daisy and the marigold; 

White-plumed lilies, and the first 

Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; 

Shaded hyacinth, alway 

Sapphire queen of the mid-May; 

And every leaf, and every flower 

Pearled with the self-same shower. 

Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep 

Meagre from its celled sleep; 

And the snake all winter-thin 

Cast on sunny bank its skin; 



BOOK FOURTH 187 

Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see 
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, 
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest 
Quiet on her mossy nest; 
Then the hurry and alarm 
When the bee-hive casts its swarm; 
Acorns ripe down-pattering, 
While the autumn breezes sing. 

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose; 
Everything is spoilt by use: 
Where's the cheek that doth not fade, 
Too much gazed at? Where's the maid 
Whose lip mature is ever new? 
Where's the eye, however blue. 
Doth not weary? Where's the face 
One would meet in every place? 
Where's the voice, however soft. 
One would hear so very oft? 
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth 
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. 
Let then winged Fancy find 
Thee a mistress to thy mind : 
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter. 
Ere the God of Torment taught her 
How to frown and how to chide; 
With a waist and with a side 
White as Hebe's, when her zone 
Slipt its golden clasp, and down 
Fell her kirtle to her feet. 
While she held the goblet sweet, 



188 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

And Jove grew languid. — Break the mesh 
Of the Fancy's silken leash; 
Quickly break her prison-string, 
And such joys as these she'll bring. 
— Let the winged Fancy roam, 
Pleasure never is at home. 

J. Keats 



CCCXIX 

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING 

I HEARD a thousand blended notes 
While in a grove I sate reclined, 
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 
Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 

To her fair works did Nature link 
The human soul that through me ran; 
And much it grieved my heart to think 
What Man has made of Man. 

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, 
The periwinkle trail'd its wreaths; 
And 'tis my faith that every flower 
Enjoys the air it breathes. 

The birds around me hopp'd and play'd, 
Their thoughts I cannot measure, — 
But the least motion which they made 
It seem'd a thrill of pleasure. 



BOOK FOURTH 189 

The budding twigs spread out their fan 
To catch the breezy air; 
And I must think, do all I can, 
That there was pleasure there. 

If this belief from heaven be sent, 
If such be Nature's holy plan, 
Have I not reason to lament 
What Man has made of Man? 

W. Wordsworth 



CCCXX 

RUTH: OR THE INFLUENCES OF 
NATURE 

When Ruth was left half desolate 
Her father took another mate; 
And Ruth, not seven years old, 
A slighted child, at her ov/n will 
Went wandering over dale and hill. 
In thoughtless freedom, bold. 

And she had made a pipe of straw, 
And music from that pipe could draw 
Like sounds of winds and floods; 
Had built a bower upon the green. 
As if she from her birth had been 
An infant of the woods. 

Beneath her father's roof, alone 

She seem'd to live; her thoughts her own; 



190 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Herself her own delight: 
Pleased with herself, nor sad nor gay; 
And passing thus the live-long day, 
She grew to woman's height. 

There came a youth from Georgia's shore 

A military casque he wore 

With splendid feathers drest; 

He brought them from the Cherokees; 

The feathers nodded in the breeze 

And made a gallant crest. 

From Indian blood you deem him sprung: 
But no! he spake the English tongue 
And bore a soldier's name; 
And, when America was free 
r>om battle and from jeopardy, 
He 'cross the ocean came. 

With hues of genius on his cheek, 

In finest tones the youth could speak: 

— While he was yet a boy 

The moon, the glory of the sun. 

And streams that murmur as they run 

Had been his dearest joy. 

He was a lovely youth ! I guess 

The panther in the wilderness 

Was not so fair as he; 

And when he chose to sport and play, 

No dolphin ever was so gay 

Upon the tropic sea. 



BOOK FOURTH 191 

Among the Indians he had fought; 

And with him many tales he brought 

Of pleasure and of fear; 

Such tales as, told to any maid 

By such a youth, in the green shade, 

Were perilous to hear. 

He told of girls, a happy rout! 

Who quit their fold with dance and shout, 

Their pleasant Indian town, 

To gather strawberries all day long; 

Returning with a choral song 

When daylight is gone down. 

He spake of plants that hourly change 
Their blossoms, through a boundless range 
Of intermingling hues; 
With budding, fading, faded flowers, 
They stand the w^onder of the bowers 
From morn to evening dews. 

He told of the magnolia, spread 

High as a cloud, high over head 

The cypress and her spire; 

— Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam 

Cover a hundred leagues, and seem 

To set the hills on fire. 

The youth of green savannahs spake, 
And many an endless, endless lake 
With all its fairy crowds 



192 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Of islands, that together lie 
As quietly as spots of sky 
Among the evening clouds. 

*How pleasant/ then he said, 'it were 

A fisher or a hunter there, 

In sunshine or in shade 

To wander with an easy mind, 

And build a household fire, and find 

A home in every glade! 

'What days and what bright years! Ah me! 

Our life were life indeed, with thee 

So pass'd in quiet bliss; 

And all the while,' said he, 'to know 

That we were in a world of woe, 

On such an earth as this!' 

And then he sometimes interwove 
Fond thoughts about a father's love, 
Tor there,' said he, 'are spun 
Around the heart such tender ties. 
That our ovm childnm to our eyes 
Are dearer than the sun. 

'Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me 

My helpmate in the woods to be, 

Our shed at night to rear; 

Or run, my own adopted bride, 

A sylvan huntress at my side, 

And drive the flying deer' 



BOOK FOURTH 193 

'Beloved Ruth!' — No more he said. 
The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed 
A solitary tear: 

She thought again — and did agree 
With him to sail across the sea, 
And drive the flying deer. 

*And now, as fitting is and right, 

We in the church our faith will plight, 

A husband and a wife.' 

Even so they did; and I may say 

That to sweet Ruth that happy day 

Was more than human life. 

Through dream and vision did she sink, 
Delighted all the while to think 
That, on those lonesome floods 
And green savannahs, she should share 
His board with lawful joy, and bear 
His name in the wild woods. 

But, as you have before been told, 
This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold, 
And with his dancing crest 
So beautiful, through savage lands 
Had roam'd about, with vagrant bands 
Of Indians in the West. 

The wind, the tempest roaring high, 
The tumult of a tropic sky 
Might well be dangerous food 



194 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

For him, a youth to whom was given 
So much of earth — so much of heaven, 
And such impetuous blood. 

Whatever in those cUmes he found 

Irregular in sight or sound 

Did to his mind impart 

A kindred impulse, seem'd allied 

To his own powers, and justified 

The workings of his heart. 

Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought, 
The beauteous forms of Nature wrought, 
Fair trees and gorgeous flowers; 
The breezes their own languor lent; 
The stars had feelings, which they sent 
Into those favour'd bowers. 

Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween 
That sometimes there did intervene 
Pure hopes of high intent: 
For passions link'd to forms so fair 
And stately, needs must have their share 
Of noble sentiment. 

But ill he lived, much evil saw, 
With men to whom no better law 
Nor better life was known; 
Deliberately and undeceived 
Those wild men's vices he received, 
And gave them back his own. 



BOOK FOURTH 195 

His genius and his moral frame 
Were thus impair'd, and he became 
The slave of low desires: 
A man who without self-control 
Would seek what the degraded soul 
Unworthily admires. 

And yet he with no feign'd delight 
Had woo'd the maiden, day and night 
Had loved her, night and morn: 
What could he less than love a maid 
Whose heart with so much nature play'd — 
So kind and so forlorn? 

Sometimes most earnestly he said, 
*0 Ruth! I have been worse than dead; 
False thoughts, thoughts bold and vain 
Encompass'd me on every side 
When I, in confidence and pride, 
Had cross'd the Atlantic main. 

'Before me shone a glorious world 
Fresh as a banner bright, unfurl'd 
To music suddenly: 
I look'd upon those hills and plains. 
And seem'd as if let loose from chains 
To live at liberty! 

'No more of this — for now, by thee, 
Dear Ruth ! more happily set free, 
With nobler zeal I burn; 



196 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

My soul from darkness is released 
Like the whole sky when to the east 
The morning doth return.' 

Full soon that better mind was gone; 
No hope, no wish remain'd, not one, — 
They stirr'd him now no more; 
New objects did new pleasure give, 
And once again he wish'd to live 
As lawless as before. 

Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, 
They for the voyage were prepared, 
And went to the sea-shore: 
But, when they thither came, the youth 
Deserted his poor bride, and Ruth 
Could never find him more. 

God help thee, Ruth ! — Such pains she had 

That she in half a year was mad 

And in a prison housed; 

And there, with many a doleful song 

Made of wild words, her cup of wrong 

She fearfully caroused. 

Yet sometimes milder hours she knew. 
Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew, 
Nor pastimes of the May, 
— They all were with her in her cell; 
And a clear brook with cheerful knell 
Did o'er the pebbles play. 



BOOK FOURTH 19] 

When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, 
There came a respite to her pain; 
She from her prison fled; 
But of the Vagrant none took thought; 
And where it liked her best she sought 
Her shelter and her bread. 

Among the fields she breathed again: 
The master-current of her brain 
Ran permanent and free; 
And, coming to the banks of Tone, 
There did she rest; and dwell alone 
Under the greenwood tree. 

The engines of her pain, the tools 

That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools, 

And airs that gently stir 

The vernal leaves — she loved them still, 

Nor ever tax'd them with the ill 

Which had been done to her. 

A barn her Winter bed supplies; 

But, till the warmth of Summer skies 

And Summer days is gone, 

(And all do in this tale agree) 

She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, 

And other home hath none. 

An innocent Kfe, yet far astray! 
And Ruth will, long before her day. 
Be broken down and old. 



198 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Sore aches she needs must have! but less 
Of mind, than body's wretchedness, 
From damp, and rain, and cold. 

If she is prest by want of food 

She from her dweUing in the wood 

Repairs to a road-side; 

And there she begs at one steep place, 

Where up and down with easy pace 

The horsemen-travellers ride. 

That oaten pipe of hers is mute 
Or thrown away: but with a flute 
Her loneliness she cheers; 
This flute, made of a hemlock stalk. 
At evening in his homeward walk 
The Quantock woodman hears. 

I, too, have pass'd her on the hills 

Setting her little water-mills 

By spouts and fountains wild — 

Such small machinery as she turn'd 

Ere she had wept, ere she had mourn'd, - 

A young and happy child! 

Farewell ! and when thy days are told, 

Ill-fated Ruth! in hallow'd mould 

Thy corpse shall buried be; 

For thee a funeral bell shall ring, 

And all the congregation sing 

A Christian psalm for thee. 

W. Wordsworth 



BOOK FOURTH 199 

CCCXXI 

WRITTEN AMONG THE 
EUGANEAN HILLS 

Many a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of Misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 
Drifting on his dreary way. 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessel's track; 
Whilst above, the sunless sky 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 
And behind the tempest fleet 
Hurries on with lightning feet, 
Riving sail, and cord, and plank, 
Till the ship has almost drank 
Death from the o'er-brimming deep; 
And sinks down, down, like that sleep 
When the dreamer seems to be 
Weltering through eternity; 
And the dim low line before 
Of a dark and distant shore 
Still recedes, as ever still 
Longing with divided will. 
But no power to seek or shun, 
He is ever drifted on 
O'er the unreposing wave, 
To the haven of the grave. 



200 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Ah, many flowering islands lie 
In the waters of wide Agony: 
To such a one this morn was led 
My bark, by soft winds piloted. 
— 'Mid the mountains Euganean 
I stood listening to the paean 
With which the legion'd rooks did hail 
The Sun's uprise majestical: 
Gathering round with wings all hoar, 
Through the dewy mist they soar 
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven 
Bursts; and then, — as clouds of even 
Fleck'd with fire and azure, lie 
In the unfathomable sky, — 
So their plumes of purple grain 
Starr'd with drops of golden rain 
Gleam above the sunlight woods, 
As in silent multitudes 
On the morning's fitful gale 
Through the broken mist they sail ; 
And the vapours cloven and gleaming 
Follow down the dark steep streaming, 
Till all is bright, and clear, and still 
Round the solitary hill. 

Beneath is spread like a green sea 
The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
Bounded by the vaporous air. 
Islanded by cities fair; 
Underneath Day's azure eyes. 
Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, — 



BOOK FOURTH 201 

A peopled labyrinth of walls, 
Amphitrite's destined halls, 
Which her hoary sire now paves 
With his blue and beaming waves. 
Lo! the sun upsprings behind, 
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined 
On the level quivering lino 
Of the waters crystalline; 
And before that chasm of light, 
As within a furnace bright. 
Column, tower, and dome, and spire, 
Shine like obelisks of fire. 
Pointing with inconstant motion 
From the altar of dark ocean 
To the sapphire-tinted skies; 
As the flames of sacrifice 
From the marble shrines did rise 
As to pierce the dome of gold 
Where Apollo spoke of old. 

Sun-girt City! thou hast been 
Ocean's child, and then his queen; 
Now is come a darker day. 
And thou soon must be his prey, 
If the power that raised thee here 
Hallow so thy watery bier. 
A less drear ruin then than now. 
With thy conquest-branded brow 
Stooping to the slave of slaves 
From thy throne among the waves 
Wilt thou be, — when the sea-mew 



202 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Flies, as once before it flew, 
O'er thine isles depopulate. 
And all is in its ancient state. 
Save where many a palace-gate 
With green sea-flowers overgrown 
Like a rock of ocean's own, 
Topples o'er the abandon'd sea 
As the tides change sullenly. 
The fisher on his watery way 
Wandering at the close of day, 
Will spread his sail and seize his oar 
Till he pass the gloomy shore, 
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep, 
Bursting o'er the starlight deep. 
Lead a rapid masque of death 
O'er the waters of his path. 

Noon descends around me now: 
'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, 
When a soft and purple mist 
Like a vaporous amethyst. 
Or an air-dissolved star 
Mingling light and fragrance, far 
From the curved horizon's bound 
To the point of heaven's profound, 
Fills the overflowing sky; 
And the plains that silent lie 
Underneath; the leaves unsodden 
Where the infant Frost has trodden 
With his morning-winged feet 
Whose bright print is gleaming yet; 



BOOK FOURTH 203 

And the red and golden vines 

Piercing with their treUised lines 

The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; 

The dun and bladed grass no less, 

Pointing from this hoary tower 

In the windless air; the flower 

Glimmering at my feet; the line 

Of the olive-sandall'd Apennine 

In the south dimly islanded; 

And the Alps, whose snows are spread 

High between the clouds and sun; 

And of living things each one; 

And my spirit, which so long 

Darken'd this swift stream of song, — 

Interpenetrated lie 

By the glory of the sky; 

Be it love, light, harmony, 

Odour, or the soul of all 

Which from heaven like dew doth fall, 

Or the mind which feeds this verse. 

Peopling the lone universe. 

Noon descends, and after noon 
Autumn's evening meets me soon, 
Leading the infantine moon 
And that one star, which to her 
Almost seems to minister 
Half the crimson light she brings 
From the sunset's radiant springs: 
And the soft dreams of the morn 
(Which Uke winged winds had borne 



204 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

To that silent isle, which lies 
'Mid remember'd agonies, 
The frail bark of this lone being), 
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, 
And its ancient pilot, Pain, 
Sits beside the helm again. 

Other flowering isles must be 
In the sea of Life and Agony: 
Other spirits float and flee 
O'er that gulf: Ev'n now, perhaps, 
On some rock the wild wave wraps. 
With folded wings they waiting sit 
For my bark, to pilot it 
To some calm and blooming cove; 
Where for me, and those I love. 
May a windless bower be built, 
Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 
In a dell 'mid lawny hills 
Which the wild sea-murmur fills, 
And soft sunshine, and the sound 
Of old forests echoing round. 
And the light and smell divine 
Of all flowers that breathe and shine, 
— We may live so happy there. 
That the Spirits of the Air 
Envying us, may ev'n entice 
To our healing paradise 
The polluting multitude : 
But their rage would be subdued 
By that chme divine and calm, 



BOOK FOURTH 205 

And the winds whose wings rain balm 

On the upHfted soul, and leaves 

Under which the bright sea heaves; 

While each breathless interval 

In their w^hisperings musical 

The inspired soul supplies 

With its o\^TL deep melodies; 

And the Love which heals all strife 

Circling, like the breath of life, 

All things in that sweet abode 

With its own mild brotherhood : — 

They, not it, would change; and soon 

Every sprite beneath the moon 

Would repent its envy vain. 

And the Earth grow young again. 

P. B. Shelley 

CCCXXII 

ODE TO THE WEST WIND 

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 

Pestilence-stricken multitudes ! O thou 

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 

Each like a corpse within its grave, until 

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 



206 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

With living hues and odours plain and hill: 
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; 
Destroyer and Preserver; Hear, oh hear! 

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's com- 
motion, 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, 
Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread 
On the blue surface of thine airy surge. 
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 
Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n from the dim verge 
Of the horizon to the zenith's height — 
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 
Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh hear! 

Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams 
The blue Mediterranean, where he la}^ 
LuU'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, 
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay. 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers 
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou 
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 



BOOK FOURTH 207 

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear 

And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh hear! 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; 
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 
The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than Thou, O uncontrollable! If even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 
Scarce seem'd a vision, — I would ne'er have striven 
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
Oh ! Hft me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 
One too like thee — tameless, and swift, and proud. 

Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is: 
What if my leaves are falling like its own! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou. Spirit fierce, 
My spirit ! be thou me, impetuous one ! 
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, 
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; 
And, by the incantation of this verse. 
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! 
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth 



208 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 

P. B. Shelley 

CCCXXIII 
NATURE AND THE POET 

Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storrriy 

painted by Sir George Beaumont 

I WAS thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! 
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: 
I saw thee every day; and all the while 
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea. 

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! 
So like, so very like, was day to day! 
Whene'er I look'd thy image still was there; 
It trembled, but it never pass'd away. 

How perfect was the calm ! It seem'd no sleep, 
No mood, which season takes away, or brings: 
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep 
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things. 

Ah! then — if mine had been the painter's hand 
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, 
The light that never was on sea or land. 
The consecration, and the Poet's dream, — 

I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile, 
Amid a world how different from this! 



BOOK FOURTH 209 

Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; 
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bhss. 

Thou shouldst have seem'd a treasure-house divine 
Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven; — 
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine 
The very sweetest had to thee been given. 

A picture had it been of lasting ease, 
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; 
No motion but the moving tide; a breeze; 
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. 

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, 

Such picture would I at that time have made; 

And seen the soul of truth in every part, 

A steadfast peace that might not be betray'd. 

So once it would have been, — 'tis so no more; 
I have submitted to a new control : 
A power is gone, which nothing can restore; 
A deep distress hath humanized my soul. 

Not for a moment could I now behold 
A smiling sea, and be what I have been: 
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old; 
This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. 

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the 

friend 
If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, 



210 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

This work of thine I blame not, but commend; 
This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. 

'tis a passionate work ! — yet wise and well, 
Well chosen is the spirit that is here; 

That hulk which labours in the deadly swell, 
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear! 

And this huge Castle, standing here subhme, 

1 love to see the look with which it braves, 

— Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time — 
The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves 

— Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, 
Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind! 
Such happiness, wherever it be known, 
Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind. 

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, 
And frequent sights of what is to be borne! 
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here : — 
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCXXIV 

THE POET'S DREAM 

On a Poet's lips I slept 
Dreaming like a love-adept 
In the sound his breathing kept; 
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal bUsses, 
But feeds on the aerial kisses 



BOOK FOURTH 211 

Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses. 
He will watch from dawn to gloom 
The lake-reflected sun illume 
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 

Nor heed nor see what things they be — 
But from these create he can 
Forms more real than hving Man, 

Nurslings of Immortality! 

P. B, Shelley 



cccxxv 

GLEN-ALMAIN, THE NARROW GLEN 

In this still place, remote from men, 

Sleeps Ossian, in the Narrow Glen; 

In this still place, where murmurs on 

But one meek streamlet, only one: 

He sang of battles, and the breath 

Of stormy war, and violent death ; 

And should, methinks, when all was past, 

Have rightfully been laid at last 

Where rocks were rudely heap'd, and rent 

As by a spirit turbulent; 

Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, 

And everything unreconciled; 

In some complaining, dim retreat, 

For fear and melancholy meet; 

But this is calm; there cannot be 

A more entire tranquillity. 



212 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? 
Or is it but a groundless creed? 
What matters it? — I blame them not 
Whose fancy in this lonely spot 
Was moved; and in such way expressed 
Their notion of its perfect rest. 
A convent, even a hermit's cell, 
Would break the silence of this Dell; 
It is not quiet, is not ease; 
But something deeper far than these: 
The separation that is here 
Is of the grave; and of austere 
Yet happy feelings of the dead : 
And, therefore, was it rightly said 
That Ossian, last of all his race! 
Lies buried in this lonely place. 

W. Wordsworth 



CCCXXVI 

The World is too much with us; late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; 
Little we see in Nature that is ours; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! 

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, 
The winds that will be howling at all hours 
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers, 
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune; 



BOOK FOURTH 213 

It moves us not. — Great God! I'd rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, — 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 

W. Wordsworth 

cccxxvn 

WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL 
CAMBRIDGE 

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, 
With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd 
(Albeit labouring for a scanty band 
Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense 

And glorious work of fine intelligence! 

— Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore 

Of nicely-calculated less or more : — 

So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense 

These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof 
Self-poised, and scoop 'd into ten thousand cells 
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells 

Lingering — and wandering on as loth to die ; 
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
That they were born for immortahty. 

W. Wordsworth 



214 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCCXXVIII 
ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 

Of deities or mortals, or of both, 
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? 

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd. 

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone : 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; 
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 
Though wimiing near the goal — yet, do not grieve; 

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bhss, 
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 

And, happy melodist, unwearied, 
For ever piping songs for ever new; 

More happy love! more happy, happy love! 
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 



BOOK FOURTH 215 

For ever panting, and for ever young; 
All breathing human passion far above, 

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies. 

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 
What little town by river or sea shore. 

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 
And, little town, thy streets for evermore 

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 

Of marble men and maidens overwrought. 
With forest branches and the trodden weed; 

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 
As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral ! 

When old age shall this generation waste, 
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

J. Keats 



216 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCCXXIX 

YOUTH AND AGE 

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, 
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee — • 
Both were mine! Life went a-maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 
When I was young! 
When I was young? — Ah, woful when! 
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! 
This breathing house not built with hands, 
This body that does me grievous wrong, 
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands 
How Hghtly then it flash'd along: 
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, 
On winding lakes and rivers wide. 
That ask no aid of sail or oar. 
That fear no spite of wind or tide ! 
Nought cared this body for wind or weather 
When Youth and I lived in't together. 

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree; 
O! the joys, that came down shower-like, 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 

Ere I was old! 
Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, 
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! 
O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 
'Tis known that Thou and I were one, 
I'll think it but a fond conceit — 



BOOK FOURTH 217 

It cannot be, that Thou art gone! 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd : — 
And thou wert aye a masker bold ! 
What strange disguise hast now put on 
To make believe that Thou art gone? 
I see these locks in silvery slips, 
This drooping gait, this alter'd size : 
But Springtide blossoms on thy Hps, 
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! 
Life is but Thought: so think I will 
That Youth and I are house-mates still. 

Dew-drops are the gems of morning, 
But the tears of mournful eve! 
Where no hope is, life's a warning 
That only serves to make us grieve 

When we are old : 
■ — That only serves to make us grieve 
With oft and tedious taking-leave, 
Like some poor nigh-related guest 
That may not rudely be dismist, 
Yet hath out-stay'd his welcome while, 
And tells the jest without the smile. 

S. T. Coleridge 



cccxxx 

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS 

We walk'd along, while bright and red 
Uprose the morning sun; 



218 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

And Matthew stopp'd, he look'd, and said 
'The will of God be done!' 

A village schoolmaster was he, 
With hair of glittering gray; 
As blithe a man as you could see 
On a spring holiday. 

And on that morning, through the grass 
And by the steaming rills 
We traveird merrily, to pass 
A day among the hills. 

'Our work,' said I, ' was well begun; 
Then, from thy breast what thought, 
Beneath so beautiful a sun. 
So sad a sigh has brought? ' 

A second time did Matthew stop; 
And fixing still his eye 
Upon the eastern mountain-top, 
To me he made reply: 

' Yon cloud with that long purple cleft 
Brings fresh into my mind 
A day like this, which I have left 
Full thirty years behind. 

'And just above yon slope of corn 
Such colours, and no other, 
Were in the sky that April morn, 
Of this the very brother. 



BOOK FOURTH 219 

'With rod and line I sued the sport 
Which that sweet season gave, 
And to the church-yard come, stopp'd short 
Beside my daughter's grave. 

'Nine summers had she scarcely seen, 
The pride of all the vale; 
And then she sang, — she would have been 
A very nightingale. 

* Six feet in earth my Emma lay; 
And yet I loved her more — 
For so it seem'd, — than till that day 
I e'er had loved before. 

'And turning from her grave, I met, 
Beside the churchyard yew, 
A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet 
With points of morning dew. 

'A basket on her head she bare; 
Her brow was smooth and white: 
To see a child so very fair, 
It was a pure delight! 

' No fountain from its rocky cave 
E'er tripp'd with foot so free; 
She seem'd as happy as a wave 
That dances on the sea. 

'There came from me a sigh of pain 
Which I could ill confine; 



220 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

I look'd at her, and look'd again: 
And did not wish her mine ! ' 

— Matthew is in his grave, yet now 
Methinks I see him stand 
As at that moment, with a bough 
Of wilding in his hand. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCXXXI 
THE FOUNTAIN 

A Conversation 
We talk'd with open heart, and tongue 
Affectionate and true, 
A pair of friends, though I was yomig, 
And Matthew seventy-two. 

We lay beneath a spreading oak, 
Beside a mossy seat; 
And from the turf a fountain broke 
And gurgled at our feet. 

'Now, Matthew!' said I, Met us match 
This water's pleasant tune 
With some old border-song, or catch 
That suits a summer's noon; 

'Or of the church-clock and the chimes 
Sing here beneath the shade 
That half-mad thing of witty rhymes 
Which you last April made!' 



BOOK FOURTH 221 

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed 
The spring beneath the tree; 
And thus the dear old man replied, 
The gray-hair'd man of glee : 

' No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears. 
How merrily it goes! 
'Twill murmur on a thousand years 
And flow as now it flows. 

*And here, on this delightful day, 
I cannot choose but think 
How oft, a vigorous man, I lay 
Beside this fountain's brink. 

'My eyes are dim with childish tears, 
]\Iy heart is idly stirr'd, 
For the same sound is in my ears 
Which in those days I heard. 

' Thus fares it still in our decay : 
And yet the wiser mind 
Mourns less for what Age takes away. 
Than what it leaves behind. 

'The blackbird amid leafy trees, 
The lark above the hill. 
Let loose their carols when they please, 
Are quiet when they will. 

'With Nature never do they wage 
A foolish strife; they see 



222 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

A happy 3'outh, and their old age 
Is beautiful and free: 

*But we are press' d by heavy laws; 
And often, glad no more, 
We wear a face of joy because 
We have been glad of yore. 

'If there be one who need bemoan 
His kindred laid in earth, 
The household hearts that were his own, 
It is the man of mirth. 

*My days, my friend, are almost gone, 
My life has been approved, 
And many love me; but by none 
Am I enough beloved.' 

'Now both himself and me he wrongs. 
The man who thus complains! 
I live and sing my idle songs 
Upon these happy plains: 

'And Matthew, for thy children dead 
I'll be a son to thee!' 
At this he grasp'd my hand and said, 
'Alas! that cannot be.' 

— We rose up from the fountain-side; 
And down the smooth descent 
Of the green sheep-track did we glide; 
And through the wood we went; 



BOOK FOURTH 223 

And ere we came to Leonard's rock 
He sang those witty rhymes 
About the crazy old church-clock, 
And the bewilder'd chimes. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCXXXII 
THE RIVER OF LIFE 

The more we live, more brief appear 

Our life's succeeding stages: 
A day to childhood seems a year, 

And years like passing ages. 

The gladsome current of our youth, 

Ere passion yet disorders, 
Steals lingering like a river smooth 

Along its grassy borders. 

But as the care-worn cheek grows wan, 

And sorrow's shafts fly thicker, 
Ye Stars, that measure life to man, 

Why seem your courses quicker? 

When joys have lost their bloom and breath 

And life itself is vapid. 
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death, 

Feel we its tide more rapid? 

It may be strange — yet who would change 
Time's course to slower speeding, 



224 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

When one by one our friends have gone 
And left our bosoms bleeding? 

Heaven gives our years of fading strength 

Indemnifying fleetness; 
And those of youth, a seeming length, 

Proportion'd to their sweetness. 

T. Campbell 

CCCXXXIII 

THE HUMAN SEASONS 

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; 
There are four seasons in the mind of man: 
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear 
Takes in all beauty with an easy span: 

He has his Summer, when luxuriously 

Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves 

To rmninate, and by such dreaming high 

Is nearest unto heaven : quiet coves 

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings 
He furleth close; contented so to look 
On mists in idleness — to let fair things 
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. 

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, 
Or else he would forego his mortal nature. 

J. Keats 



BOOK FOURTH 225 

CCCXXXIV 
A DIRGE 

Rough wind, that moanest loud 

Grief too sad for song; 
Wild wind, when sullen cloud 

Knells all the night long; 
Sad storm whose tears are vain, 
Bare woods whose branches stain, 
Deep caves and dreary main, — 

Wail for the world's wrong! 

P. B. Shelley 

cccxxxv 

THRENOS 

World! Life! O Time! 
On whose last steps I climb. 

Trembling at that where I had stood before; 
When will return the glory of your prime? 
No more — Oh, never more! 

Out of the day and night 
A joy has taken flight: 

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar 
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight 
No more — Oh, never more ! 

P. B. Shelley 



226 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

CCCXXXVI 

THE TROSACHS 

There's not a nook within this solemn Pass, 
But were an apt confessional for One 
Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, 
That Life is but a tale of morning grass 

Wither'd at eve. From scenes of art which chase 
That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes 
Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities. 
Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass 

Untouch'd, unbreathed upon: — Thrice happy quest, 
If from a golden perch of aspen spray 
(October's workmanship to rival May), 

The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast 
That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, 
Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest ! 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCXXXVII 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

A rainbow in the sky: 
So was it when my life began. 
So is it now I am a man. 
So be it when I shall grow old 

Or let me die ! 
The Child is father of the Man: 



BOOK FOURTH 227 

And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCXXXVIII 

ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY 

FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY 

CHILDHOOD 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight 
To me did seem 
Appareird in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it hath been of yore; — 
Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
By night or day. 
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 

The rainbow comes and goes, 

And lovely is the rose; 

The moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare; 

Waters on a starry night 

Are beautiful and fair; 
The sunshine is a glorious birth; 
But yet I know, where'er I go, 
That there hath past away a glory from the earth. 

.Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 
.4nd while the young lambs bound 



228 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

As to the tabor's sound, 
To me alone there came a thought of grief: 
A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 

And I again am strong. 
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; — 
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong: 
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, 
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, 
And all the earth is gay; 
Land and sea 
Give themselves up to jollity, 

And with the heart of May 
Doth every beast keep holiday; — 
Thou child of joy 
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy 
Shepherd-boy ! 

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call 

Ye to each other make; I see 
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; 
My heart is at ycur festival. 
My head hath its coronal. 
The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all. 
Oh evil day! if I were sullen 
While Earth herself is adorning 
This sweet May-morning; 
And the children are culling 

On every side 
In a thousand valleys far and wide. 
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm 
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm : — 



BOOK FOURTH 229 

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! 
— But there's a tree, of many, one, 
A single field which I have look'd upon. 
Both of them speak of something that is gone: 
The pansy at my feet 
Doth the same tale repeat: 
Whither is fled the visionary gleam? 
Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting 

And cometh from afar; 
Not in entire forge tfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness. 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home: 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy; 
The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
And by the vision splenoid 
Is on his way attended; 
At length the Man perceives it di3 away. 
And fade into the light of common day. 

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; 
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 



230 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

And, even with something of a mother's mind 
And no unworthy aim, 
The homely nurse doth all she can 
To make her foster-child, her inmate, Man, 

Forget the glories he hath known, 
And that imperial palace whence he came. 

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 
A six years' darling of a pigmy size ! 
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, 
With light upon him from his father's eyes! 
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart. 
Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; 

A wedding or a festival, 

A mourning or a funeral; 

And this hath now his heart. 

And unto this he frames his song: 
Then will he fit his tongue 
To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 

But it will not be long 

Ere this be thrown aside. 

And with new joy and pride 
The little actor cons another part; 
Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage* 
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 
That life brings with her in her equipage; 

As if his whole vocation 

Were endless imitation. 



BOOK FOURTH 231 

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 

Thy soul's immensity; 
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind, 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 
Haunted for ever by the eternal Mind, — 

Mighty Prophet ! Seer blest ! 

On whom those truths do rest 
Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; 
Thou, over whom thy Immortality 
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, 
A Presence which is not to be put by; 
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight. 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as Hfe! 

O joy! that in our embers 

Is something that doth live, 

That Nature yet remembers 

What was so fugitive ! ' 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction: not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest, 
Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, 



232 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: 
— Not for these I raise 
The song of thanks and praise; 
But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Falhngs from us, vanishings; 
Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized, 
High instincts, before which our mortal nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprized: 
But for those first affections. 
Those shadowy recollections. 

Which, be they what they may. 
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day. 
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 

To perish never; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, 

Nor man nor boy 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can utterly abolish or destroy! 

Hence, in a season of calm weather 
Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither; 
Can in a moment travel thither — 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 



BOOK FOURTH 233 

Then, sing ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! 

And let the young lambs bound 

As to the tabor's sound! 
We, in thought, will join your throng 

Ye that pipe and ye that play, 

Ye that through your hearts to-day 

Feel the gladness of the May! 
What though the radiance which was once so bright 
Be now for ever taken from my sight. 

Though nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; 

We will grieve not, rather find 

Strength in what remains behind; 

In the primal sympathy 

Which having been must ever be; 

In the soothing thoughts that spring 

Out of human suffering; 

In the faith that looks through death, 
In years that bring the philosophic mind. 

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 

Forbode not any severing of our loves! 

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; 

I only have relinquished one delight 

To live beneath your more habitual sway: 

I love the brooks which down their channels fret 

Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they; 

The innocent brightness of a new-born day 

Is lovely yet; 
The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Po take a sober colouring from an eye 



234 THE GOLDEN TREASURY 

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortaHty; 
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 
Thanks to the human heart by which we Uve, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears. 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

W. Wordsworth 

CCCXXXIX 

Music, when soft voices die, 
Vibrates in the memory — 
Odours, when sweet violets sicken, 
Live within the sense they quicken. 

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead. 

Are heap'd for the beloved's bed; 

And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone, 

Love itself shall slumber on. 

P. B. Shelley 



NOTES 

26. Eis TOP XeLfiQva Kadlaas, etc. "Sitting down in the mea- 
dow, he plucked spoils of flowers, one after another, winning them 
with dehghted soul." Quoted by Plutarch in his Moralia from 
a lost play of Euripides, Hypsipyle. 

Summary of Book Fourth 

It proves sufficiently the la\'ish wealth of our own age in 
Poetry, that the pieces which, without conscious departure from 
the Standard of Excellence, render this Book by far the longest, 
were with very few exceptions composed during the first thirty 
years of the nineteenth century. Exhaustive reasons can hardly 
be given for the strangely sudden appearance of individual 
genius: that, however, which assigns the splendid national 
achievements of our recent poetry to an impulse from the France 
of the first Repubhc and Empire is inadequate. The first 
French Revolution was rather one result, — the most conspicu- 
ous, indeed, yet itself in great measure essentially retrogressive, 

— of that wider and more potent spirit which through inquiry 
and attempt, through strength and weakness, sweeps mankind 
roimd the circles (not, as some too confidently argue, of Advance, 
but) of gradual Transformation: and it is to this that we must 
trace the Hterature of Modern Europe. But, without attempt- 
ing discussion on the motive causes of Scott, Wordsworth, 
Shelley, and others, we may observe that these poets carried 
to further perfection the later tendencies of the century pre- 
ceding, in simphcity of narrative, reverence for human passion 
and character in every sphere, and love of Nature for herself: 

— that, whilst maintaining on the whole the advances in art 
made since the Restoration, they renewed the half -forgotten 
melody and depth of tone which marked the best Elizabethan 
writers: — that, lastly, to what was thus inherited they added 
a richness in language and a variety in meter, a force and fire 
in narrative, a tenderness and bloom in feeling, an insight into 
the finer passages of the Soul and the inner meanings of the 
landscape, a larger sense of Humanity, — hitherto scarcely at- 
tained, and perhaps unattainable even by predecessors of not 
inferior individual genius. In a word, the Nation which, after 



236 NOTEB 

the Greeks in their glory, may fairly claim that during six cen- 
turies it has proved itself the most richly gifted of all nations 
for Poetry, expressed in these men the highest strength and 
prodigality of its nature. They interpreted the age to itself — 
hence the many phases of thought and style they present : — to 
sympathize with each, fervently and impartially, without fear 
and without fancifulness, is no doubtful step in the higher educa- 
tion of the soul. For purity in taste is absolutely proportionate 
to strength — and when once the mind has raised itself to grasp 
and to dehght in excellence, those who love most will be found 
to love most wisely. 

But the gallery which this Book offers to the reader will aid 
him more than any preface. It is a royal Palace of Poetry 
which he is invited to enter: 

Adparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt — 

though it is, indeed, to the sympathetic eye only that its treas- 
ures will be visible. [P.] 

33, ccviii. This beautiful lyric, printed in 1783, seems to 
anticipate in its imaginative music that return to our great 
early age of song, which in Blake's own lifetime was to prove, 
— how gloriously ! that the Enghsh muses had resumed their 
"ancient melody": — Keats, Shelley, BjTon, — he overHved 
them all. [P.] 

34, ccix, 1. 8. Parle. Speech. 

35, ccx. Chapman's Homer. Chapman was a poet and 
dramatist of the time of Shakespeare. His translation of Homer, 
while very splendid in poetic form and imagery, is less in the 
spirit of the original than of Ehzabethan verse. 

36, Stout Cortez. History would here suggest Balboa: 
(A.T.). It may be noticed, that to find in Chapman's Homer 
the "pure serene" of the original, the reader must bring with 
him the imagination of the youthful poet; — he must be "a 
Greek himself," as Shelley finely said of Keats. [P.] 

40, ccxii. The most tender and true of Byron's smaller 
poems. [P.] 

41, ccxiii. This poem exemplifies the pecuhar skill with 
which Scott employs proper names: — a rarely misleading sign 
of true poetical genius. [P.] 

44, ccxv. In some editions called "Lines to an Indian Air." 
54, ccxxvi. Simple as "Lucy Gray" seems, a mere narra-' 
tive of what "has been, and may be again," yet every touch 
in the child's picture is marked by the deepest and purest ideal 
character. Hence, pathetic as the situation is, this is not strictly 
a pathetic poem, such as Wordsworth gives us in ccxxi, Lamb 
in ccLXiv, and Scott in his '^laid of Neidpath," — "almost 



NOTES 237 

more pathetic," as Tennyson once remarked, "than a man has 
the right to be." And Lyte's lovely stanzas (ccxxiv) suggest, 
perhaps, the same remark. [P.] 

55. Moor. A tract of uninclosed, waste ground, overgrown 
with heather. — Minster-clock. Church clock. — Faggot-band. 
String or strip of bark used for tying up twigs into bundles. 

56, Furlong. Eighth of a mile. 

61, ccxxxi, 1. 3. Pensile. Hanging in space. 

66, ccxxxv. In this and in other instances the addition (or 
the change) of a title has been risked, in hope that the aim of 
the piece following may be grasped more clearly and imme- 
diately. [P.] 

68, ccxxxvii. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. The lovely lady 
wrthout mercy. Keats has taken an ancient tradition of en- 
chantment and made it live again for modern ears. 

69. Zone. Belt. 

74, ccxLii. This beautiful sonnet was the last word of a 
youth, in whom, if the fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied 
from the promise, England lost one of the most rarely gifted in 
the long roll of her poets. Shakespeare and Milton, had their 
lives been closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) 
have left poems of less excellence and hope than the youth who, 
from the petty school and the London surgery, passed at once 
to a place with them of "high collateral glory." [P-l 

Eremite. Hermit. 

75, ccxLiii. Charact'ry. Letters. 

76, ccxLiv. Desideria. Lost and longed for. 

ccxLv. It is impossible not to regret that Moore has written 
so Uttle in this sweet and genuinely national style. [P.] 

77, ccxLvi. A masterly example of Byron's command of 
strong thought and close reasoning in verse : — as the next is 
equally characteristic of Shelley's wayward intensity. [P.] 

80, ccxLVii. Written to Jane WiUiams, for whom the poet 
had in his later years a romantic attachment. 

ccxLViii. From The Lady of the Lake. — Pibroch. A kind 
of bagpipe music, variations on a particular kind of theme, 
generally martial. — Donuil Dhu. Donald the Black. 

89, ccLiii. Bonnivard, a Genevese, was imprisoned by the 
Duke of Savoy in Chillon on the lake of Geneva for his coura- 
geous defense of his country against the tyranny with which 
Piedmont threatened it during the first half of the seventeenth 
century. — This noble sonnet is worthy to stand near Milton's 
on the Vaudois massacre. [P.] 

90, ccLiv. Switzerland was usurped by the French under 
Napoleon in 1800: Venice in 1797 (cclv). [P.] 

91, CCLV. Espouse the everlasting Sea, Referring to the 



238 NOTES 

annual ceremony, in ancient times, when the Doge flung a ring 
into the sea, to symbohze the wedding of the city to the ocean. 
ccLVi. 1802. The year of the Peace of Amiens, by which 
England, made peace with Napoleon, surrendering all her recent 
conquests. Wordsworth felt that England was disgraced by a 
humihating peace, endured only because of a fear of high taxes. 

93, ccLix. This battle was fought, December 2, 1800, be- 
tween the Austrians under Archduke John and the French 
under Moreau, in a forest near Munich. Hohen Linden means 
High Limetrees. [P.] 

94, Furious Frank and fiery Hun. The French and the 
Austro-Hungarians. 

95, CCLX. Blenheim. Victory of the Alhes, 1704, under 
Prince Eugene of Savoy and the English Duke of Marlborough, 
in the war of the Spanish Succession, the object of which was 
to prevent either France or Austria from gaining so much power 
as to threaten other countries of Europe. 

97, ccLXi. 

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Horace, Odes, III, 2. 
Sweet and fitting it is, to die for one's country. 

98, ccLXii. After the capture of Madrid by Napoleon, Sir 
J. Moore retreated before Soult and Ney to Corunna, and was 
killed whilst covering the embarkation of his troops. [P.] 

113, ccLXXii. The Mermaid was the clubhouse of Shake- 
speare, Ben Jonson, and other choice spirits of that age. [P.l 

114, ccLXxiii. Maisie. Mary. — Scott has given us nothing 
more complete and lovely than this little song, which unites 
simplicity and dramatic power to a wildwood music of the 
rarest quality. No moral is drawn, far less any conscious anal- 
ysis of feehng attempted : — the pathetic meaning is left to be 
suggested by the mere presentment of the situation. A narrow 
criticism has often named this, which may be called the Homeric 
manner, superficial, from its apparent simple facility; but first- 
rate excellence in it is in truth one of the least common tiiumphs 
of poetry. This style should be compared with what is not 
less perfect in its way, the searching out of inner feehng, the 
expression of hidden meanings, the revelation of the heart of 
natm-e and of the soul within the soul, — the analytical method, 
in short, — most completely represented by Wordsworth and 
by Shelley. [P.] 

121, ccLXxvii. Wolfe resembled Keats, not only in his early 
death by consumption, and the fluent freshness of his poetical 
style, but in beauty of character: — brave, tender, energetic, 
unselfish, modest. Is it fanciful to find some reflex of these 
quahties in the "Burial" and "Mary"? Out of the abundance 
of the heart . . . [P.J 



NOTES 239 

122, ccLXXViii. From The Lady of the Lake. 

123, Corrie. Covert on a hillside. — Cumber. Trouble. [P.] 

124, CCLXXX. This book has not a few poems of greater 
power and more perfect execution than "Agnes," and the extract 
which we have ventured to make from the deep-hearted author's 
"Sad Thoughts" (ccxxiv). But none are more emphatically- 
marked by the note of exquisiteness. [P.] 

125, ccLXXXi. From The Lay of the Last Minstrel, V. Roslin, 
with its chapel and castle, he about seven miles south of Edin- 
burgh. The curiously ornate chapel, built in 1446, by Wilham 
St. Clair, Lord of RosUn, contains the familj^ vault of the Roshn 
family, where the barons were formerly buried in full armor, 
without coffins. According to the old tradition, the chapel 
appeared on fire before the death of any St. Clair. — Firth. An 
arm of the sea. 

Inch. Island. [P.] 

128, ccLxxxii, 1. 14. Promethean fire. A reminiscence of 
Shakespeare's 

I know not where is that Promethean heat 
That can thy light relume. Othello, V, ii, 12. 

where the reference is to a divine spark that could bring Hfe 
back to Desdemona. The whole poem is full of EHzabethan 
turns of phrase. 

129, 1. 1. Clerks. Scholars. 

130, ccLXXxiii. From Poetry for Children (1809), by Charles 
and Mary Lamb. This tender and original little piece seems 
clearly to reveal the work of that noble-minded and afflicted 
sister, who was at once the happiness, the misery, and the Ufe- 
long blessing of her equally noble-minded brother. [P.j 

136, ccLxxxvii, 1. 16. Narrows. The waning moon appears 
in the sky at sunrise as a crescent, narrower each day. 

141, ccLXXXix. This poem has an exultation and a glory, 
joined with an exquisiteness of expression, which place it in 
the highest rank among the many masterpieces of its illustrious 
author. [P.] 

The cuckoo is not the bird known by that name in Amepca, 
to which this description would hardly applj\ 

143, ccxc, 1. 4. Lethe-wards. Towards Lethe, the river of 
obhvion. 

144, 1. 6. Pards. Leopards, which draw the chariot of Bac- 
chus. — 1. 7. Viewless. Invisible. 

145, 1. 13. Ruth. See the Bible, the book of Ruth, II. 

146, ccxci. Westminster Bridge. Over the Thames, in the 
heart of London, connecting the cit}' proper with Westminster, 
where the Houses of Parhament and the Abbey are situated. 



240 NOTES 

148, ccxciv. Taxes. Accuses. 

154, ccxcix. Wood Street, Lothbury, Cheapside. In the 

busiest part of London. 

155, ccc. Ariel. The sprite in Shakespeare's The Tempest. 

— Miranda. Daughter of Prospero, whom Ariel served. 

156, 1. 15. Interlunar swoon. Interval of the moon's invis- 
ibihty. [P.] 

157, 1. 3. This idol. The guitar. 

160, cccii, 1. 15. Crown of rubies. The petals of the English 
daisy are tipped with pink. 

163, ccciv, 1. 9. Calpe. Gibraltar. — 1. 19. Lofoden. The 
Maelstrom whirlpool off the N.W. coast of Norway. [P.] 

164, 1. 22. Tented shores. It was the year of the Austrian 
attempt to drive the French from Germany; Hohenhnden was 
fought this same month. 

165, cccv. This lovely poem refers here and there to a ballad 
by Hamilton on the subject better treated in clxiii and clxiv. 
[P.] See The Golden Treasury, Book Third. 

For an account of Wordsworth's walking trip with his sister 
Dorothy and Coleridge, see J. C. Shairp's Aspects of Poetry, 
the chapter entitled "The Three Yarrows." Note Words- 
worth's playful imitations of the Scotch dialect of the earlier 
Yarrow poems. 

177, cccxi. Datur Hora Quieti. An hour of quiet is given. 
Virgil, ^neid, V, 844. 

181, cccxv, 1. 8. Arcturi. Seemingly used for northern stars. 

— 1. IS. And wild roses, etc. Our language has perhaps no 
line modulated with more subtle sweetness. [P.] 

182, cccxvi. Coleridge describes this poem as the fragment 
of a dream-vision, — perhaps, an opium dream? — which com- 
posed itself in his mind when fallen asleep after reading a few 
lines about "the Khan Kubla" in Purchas' Pilgrimage. [P.] 

185, cccxviii, 1. 16. Ingle. Heath-fire. 

187, 1. 23. Ceres' daughter. Proserpine. — 1. 24. God of 
Torment. Pluto. [P.] 

1. 27. Hebe. The cupbearer to the gods. 

cccxxi. The leading idea of this beautiful description of a 
day's landscape in Italy appears to be: — on the voyage of life 
are many moments of pleasure, given by the sight of nature, who 
has power to heal even the worldliness and the un charity of 
man. [P.] 

199, 1. 2. Amphitrite. Daughter to Ocean. [P.] 

204, cccxxii, 1. 11. Maenad. A frenzied nymph, attendant 
on Dionysos in the Greek mythology. May we not call this 
the most vivid, sustained, and impassioned amongst all Shel- 
ley's magical personifications of nature? [P.] 



NOTES 241 

205, 1. 1. Plants under water sympathize with the seasons 
of the land, and hence with the winds which affect them. [P.] 

206, cccxxiii. Written soon after the death, by ship^vreck, 
of Wordsworth's brother John. This poem may be profitably 
compared with Shelley's following it. Each is the most com- 
plete expression of the innermost spirit of his art given by these 
great poets: — of that idea which, as in the case of the true 
painter (to quote the words of Reynolds), "subsists only in the 
mind: the sight never beheld it, nor has the hand expressed it: 
it is an idea residing in the breast of the artist, which he is always 
laboring to impart, and which he dies at last without impart- 
ing." [P.] 

208, 1. 12. The Kind. The human race. [P.] 

209, cccxxv. Ossian. Supposed to be an ancient Celtic 
bard; poems purporting to be by him were greatly admired in 
the early nineteenth century. 

211, cccxxvii. The royal Saint. Henry VI. [P.] 

The chapel is one of the most splendid examples of the highly 
ornate cone-vaulted style that succeeded pure Gothic archi- 
tecture in England. 

213, cccxxviii, 1. 11. This folk. Its has been here plausibly, 
but perhaps unnecessarily, conjectured. [P.] 

Every one knows the general story of the Italian Renaissance, 
of the Revival of Letters. — From Petrarch's day to our own, 
that ancient world has renewed its youth: poets and artists, 
students and thinkers, have yielded themselves wholly to its 
fascination, and deeply penetrated its spirit. Yet perhaps no 
one more truly has vivified, whilst idealizing, the picture of 
Greek country life in the fancied Golden Age, than Keats in 
these lovely (if somewhat unequally executed) stanzas: — his 
quick imagination, by a kind of "natural magic," more than 
supplying the scholarship which his youth had no opportunity 
of gaining. [P.] 

223, cccxxxv. Threnos. A lament or dirge. 

224, cccxxxvi. The Trosachs. A rocky, steep pass in the 
lake region of Scotland. 

226, cccxxxviii, 1. 1. Tabor. A small drum, used as accom- 
paniment to the pipe or trumpet. 



TOPICS FOR STUDY 



1. Turn over the pages of the book and pick out poems you 
ah-eady know and like. Be prepared to read one (of not over 
twenty lines) to the class well enough to win their interest. 

2. The Subject Mattel' of Poetry. (Assignment to individuals 
or groups.) Find out the attitude of three different poets 
toward the following subjects, each group of pupils taking one 
subject: The sea, flowers, death, friends estranged, love, music, 
war, books and scholarship, rehgion, children, animals, the past, 
the supernatural, other poets. 

3. Be prepared to read to the class two short poems, or parts 
of a longer poem, in which you can bring out strong contrasts 
of feeUng. For instance, contrasting stanzas of two poems on 
the sea, like "The World is too much with us" (p. 210) and "A 
wet sheet and a flowing sea" (p. 82); or on love, as "One word 
is too often profaned" (p. 80) and "The Flight of Love" (p. 71). 
Make the class feel the difference. 

4. Memorize a poem of about fifteen lines to recite effectively. 
From now on, always learn at least four Unes, in addition to the 
regular lesson. 

5. Composition. Comparing pages 5-7 of the Introduction 
with your own reading of the i)oems, discuss why certain subjects 
are more appropriate than others for poetry. 

6. Study the Introduction, pages 7-8. Pick out from poems 
anywhere in the book examples of simile, metaphor, and per- 
sonification that seem vivid and picturesque to you, and explain 
how they strengthen the thought of the poem. (The study of 
the Introduction, here and in following lessons, should l)e done 
with the teacher, when the work is assigned.) 

7. Read the Introduction, page 10 (beginning on page 9), 
Find the tunes of some of the songs in this book, and learn to 
sing them, singly or as a class. The songs of ]\Ioore and others 
are simple, and easily within the range of high-school voices. 
Or, find in the school song-book verses that you think worthy 
of notice as poetry set to appropriate tunes. 

8. Study the Introduction, pages 11-16 (in three lessons or 
more, depending on the previous training of the class). Look 
up the poems from which illustrative lines are cjuoted, and see if 

242 



TOPICS FOR STUDY 243 

the same measure holds throughout the poem. See if you can 
find it in other poems. 

9. Select a poem the meter of which is simple and regular; 
read or recite it in well-marked rhythm, yet without singsong. 

10. Select a poem in which the meter is complicated by extra 
or misvsing syllables, by reversed accents, by hovering accents, 
or by irregular stanza form. Read or recite the poem in such 
a way as to bring out the interesting variations, without losing 
sight of the regular metrical swing. 

11. Study the sonnet (p. 16). Find two sonnets of the Shake- 
spearian and two of the Italian form; be prepared to explain 
their rime-scheme, and to discuss whether the subject chosen 
fits into the natural divisions of this verse form. Or try to 
compose a sonnet of your own (optional). 

12. Study the ode (p. 17). Find all the odes in the book, and 
determine which, if any, follow the strict Pindaric form. One 
of them may well be chosen in class for reading or memorizing, 
each member of the class taking a strophe. 

13. Library Reference Work. (To be assigned to each pupil 
at the beginning of the study, and reported on at the end.) 
Select some one poet, represented in this book, and study his 
life and works, reporting to the class, in writing, on the following 
points : 

Bibliography: A list of all books about that poet, and of all 
important passages dealing with him, in the reference books 
and hterary histories in your school or town library. 

A description (title, editor, pubUsher, date, number of pages) 
of the best edition of his works you find. 

Biography: A summary of the facts of his life, especially 
those that influenced his writing. 

Criticism: A short list of the poems for which this writer is 
most famous; and a discussion of his favorite subjects, his 
attitude toward them, his choice of poetic forms, and your 
impressions of his style. 
• Quotation: A brief passage which you have memorized, as 
being worth knowing both for its own sake and because 
it is specially characteristic of this poet. 

14. Supplementary Work. (Voluntary; to be credited for 
honor standing.) Start a scrapbook or notebook of newspaper 
and magazine verse, or poems from other books than The Golden 
Treasury. Write opposite each poem the particular thing for 
which you chose it, — sentiment, observation, imagination, 
music, cleverness, or what. When the class has finished The 
Golden Treasury, you may hand this notebook in, to be passed 
around the class, or may read your best selection. 



INDEX OF WRITERS 

With Dates of Birth and Death 

Page 

Blake, WUliam (1757-1827). 

To the Muses 33 

Byron, George Gordon Noel (1788-1824). 

All for Love 40 

There be none of Beauty's daughters 43 

She walks in beauty, like the night 45 

When we two parted 64 

Elegy on Thyrza 77 

On the Castle of Chillon 89 

Youth and Age 106 

Elegy 119 

Campbell, Thomas (1777-1844). 

Lord UlHn's Daughter 52 

To the Evening Star 60 

Earl March look'd on his dying child 73 

Ye Mariners of England 83 

Battle of the Baltic 84 

Hohenlinden 93 

The Beech Tree's Petition 148 

Ode to Winter 162 

Song to the Evening Star 176 

The Soldier's Dream 179 

The River of Life 223 

Coleridge, Hartley (1796-1849). 

She is not fair to outward view 47 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834). 

Love (Genevieve) 36 

Kubla Khan 182 

Youth and Age 216 

Cunningham, Allen (1784-1842). 

A wet sheet and a flowing sea 82 

Hood, Thomas (1798-1845). 

Past and Present 108 

The Bridge of Sighs 115 

The Death Bed 123 

244 



INDEX OF WRITERS 245 

Page 

Keats, John (1795-1821). 

Ode on the Poets 34 

On first looking into Chapman's Homer 35 

Happy Insensibility 66 

La Belle Dame sans Merci 68 

Bright Star! 74 

The Terror of Death 75 

The Mermaid Tavern 113 

Ode to a Nightingale 143 

To one who has been long in city pent 146 

Ode to Autumn 161 

The Realm of Fancy 185 

Ode on a Grecian Urn 214 

The Human Seasons 224 

Lamb, Mary (1764-1847). 

In Memoriam 130 

Lamb, Charles (1775-1835). 

The Old Familiar Faces 103 

Hester 120 

On an Infant dying as soon as born 127 

Lyte, Henry Francis (1793-1847). 

A Lost Love 51 

Agnes 124 

Moore, Thomas (1780-1852). 

Echoes 59 

At the mid hour of night 76 

Pro Patria Mori 97 

The Journey Onwards 104 

The Light of other Days 109 

Scott, Walter (1771-1832). 

The Outlaw 41 

Jock o' Hazeldean 57 

A Serenade 60 

Where shall the lover rest 67 

The Rover 70 

The Maid of Neidpath 72 

Gathering Song of Donald the Black 80 

The Pride of Youth 114 

Coronach 122 

Rosabelle 125 

Hunting Song 133 

Datur Hora Quieti 177 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822). 

The Indian Serenade 44 

I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden 47 



246 INDEX OF WRITERS 

Page 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe (continued) 

Love's Philosophy 58 

To the Night 62 

The FUght of Love 71 

One word is too often profaned 80 

Stanzas written in Dejection near Naples Ill 

To a Skylark 135 

Ozymandias of Egypt 147 

To a Lady, with a Guitar 155 

The Invitation 171 

The Recollection 173 

To the Moon 178 

A Dream of the Unknown 180 

Written among the Euganean Hills 199 

Ode to the West Wind 205 

The Poet's Dream 210 

A Dirge 225 

Threnos 225 

Music, when soft voices die 234 

SouTHEY, Robert (1774-1843). 

After Blenheim 95 

The Scholar 112 

Wolfe, Charles (1791-1823). 

The Burial of Sir John Moore 98 

To Mary 121 

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850). 

She was a phantom of delight 45 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 48 

I travell'd among unknown men 48 

The Education of Nature 49 

A slumber did my spirit seal 51 

Lucy Gray 54 

To a distant Friend 64 

Desideria 76 

Ode to Duty 87 

England and Switzerland, 1802 90 

On the extinction of the Venetian Republic 91 

London, 1802 91 

" 92 

When I have borne in memory 93 

Simon Lee 100 

A Lesson 107 

The Affliction of Margaret 130 

To the Skylark 134 

The Green Linnet 140 



INDEX OF WRITERS 247 

Page 
Wordsworth, William (continued). 

To the Cuckoo 141 

Upon Westminster Bridge 146 

Composed at Neidpath Castle 148 

Admonition to a Traveller 150 

To the Highland Girl of Inversneyde 150 

The Reaper 153 

The Reverie of poor Susan 154 

The Daffodils 158 

To the Daisy ....'. 159 

Yarrow Unvisited, 1803 165 

Yarrow Visited, 1814 167 

By the Sea 176 

To Sleep 179 

The Inner Vision 184 

Written in Early Spring 188 

Ruth, or the Influences of Nature 189 

Nature and the Poet 208 

Glen-Almain, the Narrow Glen 211 

The World is too much with us 212 

Within King's College Chapel, Cambridge 213 

The Two April Mornings 217 

The Fountain 220 

The Trossachs 226 

My heart leaps up 226 

Ode on Intimations of Immortality 227 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Page 

A Chieftain to the Highlands bound 52 

A child's a plaything for an hour 130 

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by 179 

A slumber did my spirit seal 51 

A weary lot is thine, fair maid 70 

A wet sheet and a flowing sea 82 

Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh 60 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights 36 

And is this — Yarrow? — This the Stream 167 

And thou art dead, as young and fair 77 

Ariel to Miranda: — Take 155 

Art thou pale for weariness 178 

As slow our ship her foamy track 104 

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears .... 154 

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly ... 76 

Bards of Passion and of Mirth 34 

Behold her, single in the field 153 

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed 140 

Best and brightest, come away 171 

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art 74 

Degenerate Douglas! oh, the unworthy lord 148 

Earl March look'd on his dying child 73 

Earth has not anything to show more fair 146 

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind 89 

Ethereal ministrel! pilgrim of the sky 134 

Ever let the Fancy roam 185 

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year 224 

From Stirling Castle we had seen 165 

Gem of the crimson-colour' d Even 60 

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit 135 

He is gone on the mountain 122 

How sweet the answer Echo makes 59 

248 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 249 

Page 

I arise from dreams of Thee 44 

I dream'd that as I wander'd by the way 180 

I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden . 47 

I have had playmates, I have had companions 103 

I heard a thousand blended notes 188 

I meet thy pensive, moonlight face 51 

I met a traveller from an antique land 147 

I remember, I remember 108 

I saw her in childhood ^. 124 

I saw wherein the shroud did lurk 127 

I travell'd among unknown men 48 

I wander'd lonely as a cloud 158 

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile 208 

If I had thought thou couldst have died 121 

In a drear-nighted December 66 

In the sweet shire of Cardigan 100 

In this stUl place, remote from men 211 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 182 

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free 176 

It was a summer evening 95 

Many a green isle needs must be 199 

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour 92 

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes 184 

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold 35 

Music, when soft voices die 234 

My days among the Dead are past 112 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 143 

My heart leaps up when I behold 226 

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note 98 

Now the last day of many days 173 

O blithe new-comer! I have heard 141 

O Brignall banks are wild and fair 41 

O Friend! I know not which way I must look 91 

O leave this barren spot to me 148 

O listen, listen, ladies gay 125 

O lovers' eyes are sharp to see 72 

O talk not to me of a name great in story 40 

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms 68 

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being 205 

O W^orld! O Life! O Time 225 

Of Nelson and the North 84 

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray 54 



250 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Page 

Oft in the stilly night 109 

Oh snatch'd away in beauty's bloom 119 

On a Poet's lips I slept 210 

Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee 91 

One more Unfortunate 115 

One word is too often profaned 80 

On Linden, when the sun was low 93 

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd .... 179 

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu 80 

Proud Maisie is in the wood 114 

Rough wind, that moanest loud 225 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ■ 161 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 48 

She is not fair to outward view 47 

She walks in beauty, like the night 45 

She was a Phantom of delight 45 

Souls of Poets dead and gone 113 

Star that bringest home the bee 176 

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God 187 

Surprized by joy — impatient as the wdnd 76 

Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower 150 

Swiftly walk over the western wave 62 

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense 213 

The fountains mingle with the river 58 

The more we live, more brief appear . 223 

There be none of Beauty's daughters 43 

There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine 107 

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away . 106 

There's not a nook within this solemn Pass 226 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream 227 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear Ill 

The sun upon the lake is low 177 

The World is too much with us; late and soon 212 

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness 214 

Three years she grew in sun and shower 49 

To one who has been long in city pent 146 

Two Voices are there; one is of the Sea 90 

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying 216 

Waken, lords and ladies gay 133 

We talk'd with open heart, and tongue 220 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 251 

Page 

We walk'd along, while bright and red 217 

We watch'd her breathing thro' the night 123 

When first the fiery-mantled Sun 162 

When he who adores thee has left but the name 97 

When I have borne in memory what has tamed 93 

When I have fears that I may cease to be 75 

When maidens such as Hester die 120 

When Ruth was left half desolate 189 

When the lamp is shatter'd 71 

When we two parted 64 

Where art thou, my beloved Son 130 

Where shall the lover rest 67 

Whether on Ida's shady brow 33 

With little here to do or see 159 

Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant 64 

Why weep ye by the tide, ladie 57 

Ye Mariners of England 83 

Yes, there is holy pleasure in thine eye 150 



ABERNETHY'S 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 

By JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, Ph.D. 

PORMBRLY PrINCIPALOF BERKELEY INSTITUTE, BrOOKLVN, N. Y. 

514 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price ;^1.10 

The author's long and conspicuously successful experience 
as a teacher and the time and thought he has devoted to the 
work encourage us to believe that this book will be particularly 
adapted to the varying needs of his fellow teachers. 

The plan of the book includes a brief account of the growth 
of our literature considered as part of our national history, with 
such biographical and critical material as will best make the 
first-hand study of American authors interesting and profitable. 

One of the most interesting features of the book is the supple- 
menting of the author's critical estimates of the value of the 
work of the more important American writers with opinion'' 
quoted from contemporary sources. Other strong points ar 
the attention given to more recent contributions to American 
literature and the fact that Southern literature is accorded a 
consideration commensurate with its interest and value. 

The pedagogical merit of the book is indicated by the care 
which has been given to the production of a teaching apparatus 
which is at once simple and entirely adequate. At the end of 
each chapter, two lists ot selections are provided for each im- 
portant author, one for critical study, the other for outside 
reading. Lists of reading material for the historical back- 
ground also are given. Study along the lines indicated will lead 
to a closer correlation of history' and literature than is usuallv 
secured, and to a more just appreciation of the literature. 

The books included in the list at the end of the work con- 
stitute an ample and fairly complete library of biography and 
criticism for students of American literature. 

CHARLES W. KENT, M. A., Ph. D., Linden Kent 
Memorial School of English Literature, University of 
Virginia, writes: 

I am sufficiently pleased with Abemethy's American Litera- 
ture to adopt it for use in my class next session. This I have 
done after a careful examination of nearly all of the collecre 
text-books on American literature now on the market. 



MERRILL'S ENGLISH TEXTS 

COMPLETE EDITIONS 

For Uniform College Entrance Examinations 

Addison, The Sir Roger de Coverly 

Papers in *'The Spectator" 30 cents 

Browning — Poems (Selected) 25 cents 

Bunyan — Pilgrim's Progress, Part I. . . . 40 cents 
Burke — Speech on Conciliation with 

America 2.5 cents 

Byron — Childe Harold, Canto IV, and 

The Prisoner of Chillon 25 cents 

Carlyle — An Essay on Burns 25 cents 

Coleridge — The Rime of the Ancient 

Mariner, and otlier Poems 25 cents 

Coleridge — The Rime of the Ancient 
Mariner, and Lowell — The Vision of 

Sir Launfal, Combined 40 cents 

Defoe — Robinson Crusoe 50 cents 

DeQuincey — Joan of Arc, and The 

English Mail Coach 25 cents 

Dickens — A Tale of Two Cities 50 cents 

Eliot, George — Silas Marner 40 cents 

Emerson — Essays (Selected) 40 cents 

Gaskell — Cranford 40 cents 

Goldsmith — The Deserted Village, and 

other Poems 25 cents 

Goldsmith — The Vicar of Wakefield .... SO cents 
Gray — An Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard, and Goldsmith — The Deserted 

Village, Combined 30 cents 

Hale — The Man Without a Country, and 

My Double, and How He Undid Me 25 cents 
Hawthorne — The House of the Seven 

Gables 40 cents 



Homei — The Odyssey, Books VI to XIV, 

XVIII to XXIV (English translation) 40 cents 

Irving^ — The Sketch Book 50 cents 

Lamb — Essays of Elia 50 cents 

Lincoln — Selections 25 cents 

Lowell — The Vision of Sir Launfal, and 

other Poems 25 cents 

Macaulay — Essays on Lord Clive and 

Warren Hastings 40 cents 

Macaulay — Lays of Ancient Rome, and 

Arnold — Sohrab and Rustum, Combined SO cents 

Macaulay — The Life of Samuel Johnson 25 cents 
Milton — Lycidas, Comus, L' Allegro, II 

Penseroso, and other Poems 25 cents 

Palgrave — The Golden Treasury 50 cents 

Parkman — The Oregon Trail 50 cents 

Poe — The Raven — Longfellow — The 

Courtship of Miles Standish, and 

Whittier — Snow Bound, Combined ... 25 cents 

Scott — Ivanhoe 50 cents 

Scott — The Lady of the Lake 30 cents 

Selected Short Stories 35 cents 

Selections from American Poetry 40 cents 

Shakespeare — A Midsummer Night's 

Dream 25 cents 

Shakespeare — As You Like It 25 cents 

Shakespeare — Julius Caesar 25 cents 

Shakespeare — King Henry V 25 cents 

Shakespeare — Macbeth 25 cents 

Shakespeare — The Merchant of Venice. . 25 cents 

Shakespeare — Twelfth Night 25 cents 

Stevenson — An Inland Voyage and 

Travels with a Donkey 40 cents 

Stevenson — Treasure Island 40 cents 

Tennyson — Idylls of the King 30 cents 

Thoreau — Walden 50 cents 

Washington — Farewell Address, and 

Webster — Bunker Hill Orations 25 cents 



